


Everything Stays, But It Still Changes

by GoldenWaffles



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: And she's a bit freaked out, As you might imagine, Body Swap, Canon divergent- season one, Coming Out, Earp Curse Drama, Extreme Season One Energy, F/F, Family Drama, Fluff, Gen, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Humor, It starts in Wynonna's POV, Sisterly bonding, The Earp Sisters Are Very Important To Me Dot Tumblr Dot Com, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, copious swearing, rating is for language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:34:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23886028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldenWaffles/pseuds/GoldenWaffles
Summary: It's just another day in the life of Wynonna Earp... except that she wakes up in her little sister's body. Hijinks ensue as she races over to the police station to get things sorted out... only to be unexpectedly pulled into the sheriff's office for a rendezvous with one Officer Haught. Looks like Waverly's been keeping some secrets, and a conversation might be overdue. But first they've got to find the Revenant responsible and undo the switcheroo!Join me on this romp through Waverly and Wynonna's wildest day yet.Chapters One and Two have the hijinks. Chapter Three is some choice sisterly bonding. Chapter Four is some prime romantic fluff.
Relationships: Waverly Earp & Wynonna Earp, Waverly Earp/Nicole Haught
Comments: 117
Kudos: 463





	1. Mornings, Am I Right?

**Author's Note:**

> So obviously earlier in the year, they did WayHaught Week 2020 with the themed prompts (I somehow always miss those until it's too late), and one of them was Body Swap, and so I read a bunch of those while that was going on. Which was all well and good, but apparently it planted a seed deep in my mind without my awareness, and that seed of “How would _I_ do a body swap fic” eventually germinated and started growing like kudzu and then boom, here we are. I just feel like there’s so much to be mined from the void of Season One content, so I’ve returned to the well again (now there’s a mixed metaphor for you) for this.
> 
> This takes place in the narrow space between Waverly finding her courage in 1x09 and everything with Willa kicking off in 1x10. So, in the brief time period when Waverly and Nicole are first dating, but Wynonna doesn’t know about it, but otherwise things are going smooth. Oh how fun.
> 
> This was a blast and a half to write, especially in Wynonna’s voice. I feel like her head is probably a wild place to be most days. With lots of cursing, if only because I assume that for every "fuck" that Wynonna _says_ , there's like ten more that she _thinks_. So without further ado, I hope you all enjoy this. Drop a comment if you like, and the next chapters should follow without too much delay.

Wynonna woke up buried under what felt like an avalanche of blankets… which was weird for a number of reasons. One, she usually slept on top of her covers as much as underneath them. And two, she had been pretty sure she had fallen asleep in the backseat of her car while staking out the trailer park with only a half-empty bottle of whiskey and a party-sized bag of cheese puffs for company.

She didn’t feel gross and hungover, though. If anything, she felt good. A little cold, maybe, even under the blankets, but otherwise good. Clear-headed. Rested. Not noticeably covered in radioactive-orange powdered cheese and stale alcohol.

Determined to find out _who_ exactly had moved her while she slept and _how_ and _why_ , she fought her way out of the blanket pile and emerged to find herself in… Waverly’s room?

“What the—” She clapped a hand over her mouth as her voice came out far, far too high. She coughed and tried again. “Fuck?”

It wasn’t her voice.

It _wasn’t **her** voice_.

But… it _was_ a voice she recognized.

She bolted out of bed, scrambling with limbs that seemed shorter and thinner than they were supposed to be, and stumbled to a halt in front of the mirror.

“Oh, double fuck.”

Standing in her place, with messy hair and fuzzy pajamas, was Waverly.

* * *

She raised her hand. The Waverly in the mirror raised its hand. She stuck her tongue out, and Mirror Waverly did the same. She made Mirror Waverly pinch her own arm. It hurt.

Great.

Just fucking _great_.

She choked out a whole dictionary of curses, all of which sounded strange in Waverly’s voice— Gus’s lessons regarding cursing had worked better on Waverly than they had on her. Between _what-the-fucks_ and _this-goddamn-towns_ , Wynonna’s mind whirred for a reason why this was happening and scrambled uselessly for a plan to make it stop.

It _had_ to have something to do with the case from yesterday. That creepy, chanting Revenant with his pocket full of charms and amulets. The one she had nicknamed “David Cop-a-Feel” because he had grasped at them both as he fled, and his gross, bony Revenant hand had touched her boob.

He did this. That was the only thing that made sense.

Not that _any_ of this made sense.

Even by Purgatory standards, this was seventy-seven kinds of fucked up.

She pushed Waverly’s hair, longer and lighter brown than hers, back over her shoulder to keep it out of her face. No more sulking. It was go-time.

“Okay, so, first thing, uh… I have to find Waves. And Dolls.”

She spotted Waverly’s phone charging on her nightstand and made a mad dash for it. She picked it up, nearly fumbling it in her haste, and tried to wake it up. The screen, mocking her, requested a passcode.

Fuck.

“No, it’s okay. This is fine. Waverly’s my sister. I’ve known her _literally_ her entire life. I can guess a four-digit passcode.”

She gave a falsely confident laugh and racked her brain for possible favorite numbers or special dates.

She snapped her fingers as an idea struck her.

“Birthday. Everyone uses their birthday, right? So I just put in… her… uh… _shit_! Mother _fucker_!”

She couldn’t remember Waverly’s birthday. That shouldn’t really have been a surprise; she _never_ remembered it. Every year, she told herself to just mark it on the damn calendar, and every year she forgot, and it drove Waverly **_crazy_**.

“She’s never going to let me forget this,” she groaned to herself. This was a nightmare. Waverly would be impossible to live with after this. She could imagine her now, on an annual loop for the rest of their lives: _So even when **both** our lives depend on it, you **still** can’t remember my birthday? What kind of sister are you?_

Just her luck.

So instead she went for a Hail Mary— or rather a Hail Siri— and held down the main button until it beeped and “ _What can I help you with?_ ” appeared on the screen. She sighed in relief. For the first time all morning, at least the _tiniest_ thing had broken her way.

“Call Waverly,” she told it, realizing the second it left her lips how stupid that was. And indeed, the phone searched its contact list and came up empty. She smacked her forehead. _Idiot_. “Call Wynonna,” she said instead.

If she was in Waverly’s body, then it seemed fair to assume that Waverly was in _her_ body. Maybe. Hopefully. _Please._ So once she knew where _that_ was, they could meet up and grab Dolls and they could all figure out _what the goddamn hell was going on_.

“Calling Wynonna Earp,” the phone stated, and Wynonna had a mini-celebration. _Hell yeah!_

But the phone rolled over instantly to her voicemail without even ringing.

“No! No-no-no-no-no-no!” With a rush of horror, she realized that she didn’t remember charging her phone at all before the stakeout, which meant it was almost guaranteed to be dead this morning.

Stupid batteries. Stupid chargers that _always_ broke or got lost. Stupid getting distracted by whiskey and cheese puffs and Revenants playing stupid card games while she made up a running commentary for them.

“Triple fuck.”

She held the phone’s main button again until the screen flashed.

“Call Dolls.” The phone apologized and asked her to try again. “Call Deputy Marshall Dolls.” Nothing. Either Waverly didn’t have his number saved, or it was under some other name. Maybe some cutesy nickname, like “Agent Grumpypants” or something. Without the phone’s passcode, she couldn’t search the contacts.

She groaned again.

“Okay, so now what?”

Her mind just briefly entertained the idea of calling Doc, only to be shut down by the obvious fact that she _did not_ want Doc to see her like this. The guy she was boning, seeing her in her baby sister’s body? No way. Boner killer on both sides. They would never be able to look at each other the same way again. Plus, he had been more AWOL than usual lately.

She would have to go with Dolls.

So…

If she were Dolls… where would she be?

The police station. _Duh._

She had to get to the police station. Dolls was probably there, and once she found him, they could go look for Waverly, and hope that her body was still right where she’d left it. Or maybe she would even get lucky and Waverly would have already made her way to the station.

But given the amount of “luck” she’d had this morning, she wasn’t holding her breath.

She wanted to leave immediately, but she was still dressed in fuzzy pajamas with a rat’s nest of hair, and Waverly would literally murder her if she made her body run into their workplace in that state.

With an impatient groan, she made a quick stop at Waverly’s closet and picked the first work-appropriate things she could find, including a thick sweater, because _jesus christ_ , was Waverly seriously this cold _all the time_? How did she survive? No wonder she slept under a billion blankets.

She kept her eyes squeezed shut, chanting, “It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s nothing I haven’t seen before,” as she pulled the pajamas off and the fresh clothes on. Once dressed, she found a brush by the mirror and ran it through her hair just enough to be called presentable, then took off at a sprint for the car.

* * *

The drive to the police station was the same as it always was, but somehow still _super_ weird, and not just because she had to take Waverly’s jeep. Everything felt off. She was shorter than usual, and her legs weren’t as long, and everything was just at a slightly different angle and required slightly different amounts of pressure than she was expecting. Waverly was stronger than she looked, but every movement just felt _weird_. It left her feeling clumsy and awkward.

When she pulled into the cop shop, Dolls’s government-issued SUV was conspicuously absent from the parking lot, but Wynonna crossed her (Waverly’s?) fingers and rushed inside, hoping that he would be there anyway.

Maybe he had just parked down the street for some reason. Maybe the SUV broke down and he caught an Uber to work. That could happen, right? This _was_ Purgatory. It would hardly be the strangest thing to happen. Case in point: literally everything that had happened this morning already.

“Please please please please please—”

It was early enough that the bullpen was still empty except for early-bird Haught, who was seated at her desk, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, with a mug of Nedley’s gross break room coffee and a stack of boring-looking files in front of her.

“Hey,” Wynonna said quickly, and Haught raised her head and looked over. Which was all well and good, except that the look that crossed her face when their eyes met was unlike any expression she had seen the deputy wear before, and also unlike any look Wynonna had ever received in her life. Her whole face melted into a beatific smile, like she was looking at some magnificent eighth wonder of the world. Wynonna paused, flummoxed, in the doorway to the bullpen, feeling the need to turn around and see if there was something impressive standing right behind her all of a sudden. “Um… have you seen Dolls around?”

Haught grinned at her as though they were sharing an inside joke, rising from her desk and striding over to where Wynonna stood near the sheriff’s office.

“Nope, it’s just us. Come on.” Haught loosely grasped her arm and tugged her towards Nedley’s office. Confused, Wynonna let herself be led. She knew that Waverly and Haught talked sometimes, and were maybe approaching something like friendship, but this seemed excessive. Haught was practically starry-eyed. “I got your texts and thought maybe if I got here early, I could catch you before the others showed up.”

“Oh. Uh, yeah. Good call,” Wynonna said vaguely, as Haught pulled her inside Nedley’s office(?) and shut the door behind them(???).

She and Waverly _texted_ now? When did _that_ start? Well, maybe it wasn’t _that_ weir—

Haught was kissing her.

 **HAUGHT** was **KISSING** HER.

With her MOUTH.

And her HANDS were cupping her FACE.

And her TONGUE was—

Wynonna yanked back, stumbling a step away from an increasingly confused and concerned and stricken-looking Haught.

“Sorry. Was that not okay?” Haught said immediately. “I thought— because you said in the text— but— I should have asked anyway. I’m sorry. I will next time, I promise.” She looked lost and doe-eyed and apologetic, and her voice had gone all soft and tender, and Wynonna’s mouth tasted like coffee and vanilla and _**WHAT THE ACTUAL LITERAL FUCK** —_ “Hey, what’s wrong? Talk to me.”

Wynonna blinked, trying to pull her thoughts together. She was _Wynonna goddamn Earp_ , after all, and she kicked demonic ass like it was her job (because it _was_ literally her job), and she could deal with Nicole _walking bumper sticker_ Haught.

“No, I, uh…” She raised a hand to her lips, which were still wet and tingling faintly where Haught’s had been moving against them. Haught. Nicole Haught. Officer Haught. A cop. A female cop. Kissing her baby sister’s mouth like she fucking _owned_ it.

Demons were easy. She could just shoot them. Boom, hellfire, done. But what the fuck was she supposed to do with _this_?

She jumped as a gentle hand touched down on her shoulder.

“Are you feeling okay?” Haught’s guilty, apologetic gaze was shifting deeper into the realm of concern and confusion, and her hand stroked down Wynonna’s arm in a familiar, affectionate touch.

Wynonna grabbed onto the idea like a lifeline.

“No, I, uh— I think I’m… getting sick. So… we probably shouldn’t…”

Haught, looking more concerned than ever, stopped stroking her arm ( _thank Christ_ ) and instead pressed the back of her hand against her forehead.

“You do feel a little warm. Do you want me to drive you home?” She removed her hand, but not without brushing a few stray locks of hair out of her face, tucking them behind her ear and barely ghosting a touch down her jawline.

It was bizarre.

Not just the fact that Waverly was apparently secretly dating a cop— although that _certainly_ had a place of honor on the list— but the actual, physical experience of being on the receiving end of this kind of softness. _That_ was bizarre.

People were not _soft_ with Wynonna. Aside from Waverly, no one— not family, not friends, not lovers— _no one_ was this soft with her.

And for just a second, she wondered if maybe she was missing out on something.

As the last tingle of the feather-light touch faded from her cheek, she shook her head and snapped back to her senses.

“No, I was just going to, um… find Wynonna!” It came out in a rush, a little louder than she had intended. She cleared her throat and lowered her voice again. “Have you seen her?”

Haught tilted her head slightly.

“No, I haven’t yet today. I thought you were looking for Dolls earlier?”

Fuck. Why couldn’t Haught have the decency to be worse at her job, like the rest of the useless donut-gobblers around here?

“Yeah, well… I… thought Wynonna would be with him, so if I found him, I’d find her, and then… um…”

Haught, perhaps luckily, seemed to interpret her poor attempts at lying as disorientation, or some other symptom of the fake illness. The concern in her face intensified, and she tried to lead her towards the couch across from Nedley’s desk.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to drive you home? Or at least get you some water or something? Here, why don’t you sit down for a minute.”

Wynonna opened her mouth to protest, but before she could say anything, the door to the Sheriff’s office burst open, banging against the opposite wall and _clearly_ startling the living daylights out of Haught, who jumped a full step back and snapped her arms behind her back like a kid caught with their hand in the cookie jar. Wynonna looked up into the open doorway and saw… herself.

Her own body, disheveled but intact, stood in the doorway, breathing hard, looking in at the pair of them with a look in her eyes like… _fear_?

Wynonna glanced at Haught, who was doing an unconvincing job at acting casual, glancing around the room like she was trying to find any possible excuse why they would be there, alone, with the door closed.

But… _why_? If this wasn’t some weird one-off thing, then why were they hiding it? Was Waverly actually _that_ worried about how she would react? Seriously? What did she think would happen?

“There you are… sis,” Her own voice said from across the room. As trippy as it had been to wake up in Waverly’s body, this was somehow trippier. Her eyes— her actual body’s eyes— slid over to where the redheaded cop was picking up a file at random from Nedley’s desk. “Hey, Nicole.”

“Wynonna,” Haught greeted back. “We were just…” she trailed off uncertainly, looking to Wynonna-who-she-thought-was-Waverly in a silent plea for help, but luckily no explanation was needed.

“I was just about to come looking for you,” Wynonna said quickly, instinctively tugging at her sweater, in case Haught’s overactive hands had left it askew. “I’m, uh, not feeling well. Could you drive me home?”

Relief broke out on Waverly’s features (or technically Wynonna’s actual features) (god this was getting confusing), and she nodded quickly.

“Yeah. Of course.” Her eyes flickered briefly over to Haught, and she looked momentarily anguished. Geez, was her face really always _that_ transparent? She would need to work on that, or Dolls would never let her go undercover. “Um… come on.”

Waverly backed out of the room, heading back towards the parking lot. Wynonna went to follow her, but was stopped by a small “Wait” from Haught.

Against her better judgment, she paused while Haught caught back up to her.

“Hey, call me later and let me know how you’re feeling. And if there’s anything I can do, or bring you, or… just, anything. Okay?” Her face had gone all soft again, and Wynonna could only nod in response. Haught seemed satisfied enough with that, and Wynonna almost thought she’d gotten away free, but then a hand touched the back of her head, and lips touched down on her forehead, just briefly. “Feel better,” Haught murmured as a goodbye, and finally, _finally_ Wynonna was able to make her escape.

* * *

She followed her body out to the parking lot, where she watched herself climb into the driver’s seat of the Jeep, apparently on instinct, before realizing she didn’t have the keys. Wynonna tossed them through the open window, then climbed into the passenger seat.

“Please tell me you’re actually Waverly,” she said, looking herself in the eye.

“Yeah. Wynonna?” Waverly asked, clearly checking for verification.

“Yeah. Thank god…” They sat next to each other in silence, the car not moving yet. Which was fine, because there were just a few pressing questions Wynonna wanted answered. Most importantly: “Baby girl… what the fuck just happened in there?”

Waverly cringed and lay her forehead against the steering wheel, giving a small groan.

“Did you _have_ to go into Nedley’s office with her?” she asked, her voice a whine.

“How was I supposed to know what she was gonna do? I just walked in, and she started talking about some texts you sent her, and how, ‘Oh, it’s safe, no one else is around,’ and then, _wham_!”

Waverly groaned again.

“Oh yeah. I forgot about the texts.” She screwed up her face in a rueful pout that Wynonna did _not_ enjoy seeing on her own face.

Wynonna waited for an explanation, but Waverly didn’t seem to plan on offering one.

Good thing it wasn’t her decision.

“So how long has… _that_ … been going on?” Wynonna prompted, using _that_ in place of _you having this town’s only half-decent cop wrapped around your little finger, making googly eyes at you and smashing faces_ —

“Not that long. It just… _happened_ … kinda all of a sudden,” Waverly said, a little meekly, her fingers fluttering in some vague gesture.

“Bullshit,” Wynonna said instantly. ‘Just happened.’ _Nuh-uh_. Hell, her face was _still_ tingling from Haught’s adoring little forehead kiss. “I saw the look on her face. Baby girl, that cop is _drooling_ over you. That doesn’t just happen overnight.”

“You think?” Waverly asked, looking a little hopeful.

“When I told her I was feeling sick, she nearly fell over herself offering to drive me home or get me water or carry me to the hospital on her back—”

“Wynonna—”

“Okay, I made the last one up, so sue me. But as someone who has had things ‘just happen’ with many, _many_ people, they tend to not look at you like _that_ afterwards.”

Waverly looked oddly comforted by the sentiment, and Wynonna wondered if she had somehow missed Waverly returning Haught’s heart-eyes. Was she really _that_ oblivious?

Or was it not so much _oblivious_ as _self-centered_? She had been so caught up in her roller coaster ride with Doc that she hadn’t even been thinking about Waverly’s relationship status. Once Champ had been kicked to the curb (putting all of them out of their misery, thank God), she had flown the ‘Mission Accomplished’ banner and not really thought about the logical follow-up.

“I guess it started…” Waverly began. She looked nervous and uncertain, but gave a small, reflexive laugh at whatever thought had crossed her mind. “Well, actually, the first time we really, officially met, she tried to ask me out.”

Damn, so Haught was _forward_. Who knew?

“When was that?” Wynonna tried to set up a timeline in her head. Waverly winced at her, apologetically.

“Um… kinda… right when you first came back,” she said. Wynonna gave her an exasperated look.

_For fuck’s sake—_

“Wave, that was _months_ ago.”

“Well, I didn’t say _yes_ then, obviously. I was still with Champ, and I’d never even met her before, and she was… a girl. Or, woman. You know what I mean.” Color was creeping up her neck in a faint blush.

“You’ve never dated a woman before?” Wynonna asked. It was a question she wouldn’t have even thought of asking until about twenty minutes ago, but now she wasn’t so sure she knew the answer.

“No!” Waverly said sharply, then shook her head, looking embarrassed by her too-quick answer. “I mean, it’s not like I’d _never_ thought about it, even just for a second, but… You grew up here, too. You know what it’s like. Finding _men_ to date is hard enough. Everyone already thought I was a freak. And it’s not like I had a lot of options either way.”

She had a fair argument there. If gossip was the town sport, then most Purgatorians were Olympic gold medalists when it came to gossiping about _Earps_. Add that to Waverly’s almost pathological need to be liked, and it didn’t exactly bode well for that particular kind of experimentation.

“Until Haught,” Wynonna guessed.

“Until Nicole…” Waverly agreed in a rather disgustingly lovestruck sigh. Wynonna suppressed her urge to gag and instead tried to imagine what possibly could have changed her mind.

“So… how did she do it?”

“What?” Waverly asked, not following.

“Her. Haught. Asking you out. You saying yes. All that sappy romantic BS.”

“Oh… uh…” Waverly blushed. “Is that _really_ important right now? Don’t we need to… undo this?” Waverly dodged the question, gesturing back-and-forth between the two of them. Wynonna shot her a suspicious look, but let it go for now. She _did_ kind of have a point, after all.

“Fine. We need to call Dolls, but I couldn’t get your stupid phone to call him.”

“Well, _I_ couldn’t get _your_ stupid phone to _turn on_. Haven’t you ever heard of charging cables?”

“I’ve heard of them, they just always _break_.”

With a long-suffering sigh, Waverly pulled Wynonna’s phone from her pocket and, leaning over, popped the glove box, where a white cord was neatly coiled. She plugged the phone into the car and waited for the screen to turn on.

“You couldn’t just look him up in my contacts? He’s in there,” Waverly said.

“How was I supposed to know the code to open it?” Wynonna countered, bristling defensively.

“It’s just my birthday,” Waverly said, as if that was the most obvious thing in the entire world. Which... maybe it was.

“Oh.” _Damnit._

“Everyone uses their birthday,” Waverly continued, as if Wynonna were being intentionally stupid. Which... also maybe she was.

“Not _everyone_ ,” Wynonna disagreed, a little petulantly.

“Lots of people do. You didn’t even _try_ it, even as a guess?”

“No, uh— I did, but it didn’t work. I must have hit a wrong number or something. Your fingers are tiny, I wasn’t used to them yet.” The excuse sounded good in her head, but Waverly still eyed her sideways, skepticism simmering between them and making Wynonna fantasize about fleeing from the car.

“Wynonna… you _do_ know my birthday, don’t you?” she asked, her voice _just_ shy of accusing.

“Yes,” Wynonna lied immediately. Waverly’s eyes narrowed, and Wynonna was starting to see why people acted so intimidated around her. With the dark eyes and the wild hair and the leather jacket and the big-ass gun on her hip, she could look _damn_ scary when she wanted to. At least, if you ignored the cheese dust on her shirt.

“Okay, so what did you type in the phone?” Waverly challenged, with _no_ room for a subject change.

“Your birthday.”

“Which is…?”

Waverly pinned her down with a more-than-suspicious glare, and Wynonna felt herself shrink back guiltily.

“In… the… fall?” she answered slowly, then recoiled as Waverly punched her shoulder. _Ow._ Well, she had known that was coming. “Hey! You’re only hurting yourself, you know.”

“0-9-0-8. Every year. Every single year of my entire life, it’s been on the same day, and you _seriously_ can’t—”

“Oh hey look, my phone’s back on!” Wynonna interrupted hurriedly as she saw her screen light up. Waverly shot her a dark _we’ll-get-back-to-this_ look, but fell silent as Wynonna hurriedly called Dolls.

He picked up. Wynonna made a mental note to hug him or kiss him or give him a hand job for that the next time they saw each other, then immediately crossed out _that_ note because _oh yeah_ , she was still in her baby sister’s body, and _that_ wasn’t a mental image any of them needed.

Maybe just the hug.

“What is it, Earp?” came Dolls’s voice from the speaker.

“Dolls, thank God. Why aren’t you at the cop shop?” Wynonna shot at him.

“Uh… Waverly?” Doll’s voice was puzzled. “Did you call me on Wynonna’s phone?”

“Isn’t that a question with a fascinating answer. Now where the hell are you?” Wynonna said. There was a stunned silence on the other end of the line as he seemed to process her choice of words.

“Wynonna?”

“Dolls. _Where_?”

“Uh… I’m back at that Revenant’s shack. I wanted to see if he came back after we left.”

“Good. Stay there. And… don’t _touch_ anything, okay? We’re on our way.” She hung up without a goodbye, then nodded to Waverly. “Creepy Revenant’s shack from yesterday. And step on it.”

* * *

As Waverly drove them to the location, Wynonna sat in the passenger seat, fidgeting and trying hard to keep from thinking too much about their situation, and its ramifications, and what might happen if they couldn’t reverse it right away, or if they couldn’t reverse it _ever_ , or—

She jolted so hard when Waverly’s phone buzzed in her pocket that she nearly threw it out the window out of sheer panic.

“What is it?” Waverly asked her, shooting her a weird look from the driver’s seat.

“Um… nothing. A text.” She looked down at the screen, where a text message was displayed. “It’s from Haught. She says to get some rest and to call her if you need anything.”

“What?” Waverly looked confused.

“We told her I was sick, remember? Or, that _you_ were sick. _Shit_ , this is complicated.” Wynonna pinched the bridge of her nose against a threatening headache. The phone buzzed again. “Never mind, she says to call her anyway, later, once you’re settled, even if you don’t need anything.” Wynonna shook her head, bemused. “Look at this, she’s _obsessed_ with you. What a sap.”

“Yeah, how crazy, to care about someone you’re dating,” Waverly said sarcastically. “What a freak.”

“Hey, it _is_ weird. To me. I mean, I didn’t even know that you guys were _friends_ , let alone dating. Now I find out she has a secret altar to you in her bedroom closet—”

“Wynonna—” Waverly interrupted her, sounding tired and tense.

“Okay, _okay_. Fine. She seems… sweet.” Just saying those words made her feel weird. Wynonna Earp did not describe people as ‘sweet.’ It was like a sheep walking on its hind legs, as Uncle Curtis used to say. “It’s just weird thinking about her that way.”

“I wanted to tell you. But, come on. She’s a cop. And a _girl_. I mean, _woman_.”

“You really think I care about that?” Wynonna asked, feeling more defensive than she would have expected. “I mean, the cop thing, sure— cops are the worst— but did you really think that you dating a woman was going to freak me out? Or that I’d… I don’t know, be pissed at you or something?”

“Not really. I don’t know. It’s just… _different_ , that’s all. I didn’t want it to change the way you think about me.” Waverly’s voice was low and serious and struck Wynonna as _dangerously_ vulnerable. “Everything’s already changed so much, so fast. I mean, look at the past few months. Uncle Curtis died, you came back, Doc Holliday is somehow alive, I broke up with Champ, Gus sold Shorty’s, I might be legally or cosmically married to a _skull_.” She smiled just a bit at the last part, and Wynonna returned it, feeling emotion twist inside her like a living, breathing thing— love and guilt and pain all squirming together in her gut. “I just… I wanted _us_ to still be good.”

Wynonna didn’t often regret having left Purgatory. Deep down, she knew it was what she needed to do, and what little mental and emotional health she had left to her name was _entirely_ down to the miles and entire _oceans_ that she had put between herself and the constant judgement (social _and_ legal) of their home town. But in moments like this, when she could see that fear in her sister’s eyes that never _fully_ went away, that fear that there had been _too much_ distance between them, and that any day she might just pick up and move away again… well, it felt pretty shitty.

She took a deep breath, eyes locked on her sister’s face, where she knew pain and fear and insecurity and loneliness all lurked just below the surface.

“Waverly… I only want to say this once, so listen up. You and me, we’re _always_ gonna be good. I know I haven’t always been the world’s easiest sister to have, but don’t you _ever_ think that there is _anything_ you could do that would make me not love you. Or even _like_ you, for that matter. You’re stuck with me for life, baby girl. So you’d better get used to that.”

Waverly looked back at her with teary eyes.

“I know.” She forced herself to look back at the road, sniffling, which thankfully gave Wynonna a chance to discreetly wipe her own eyes, just in case. “If we weren’t driving somewhere really important right now, I would hug you.”

Wynonna laughed, and reached out to squeeze her arm in consolation.

“Save it for later. We are _not_ finished talking about this.”

“You know, I was afraid you’d say that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *cackles maniacally*  
> I hope you're all enjoying so far. Drop a comment if you like, and I'll get the next two chapters up when I can. Or come bug me on Tumblr, @absoluteham.


	2. What Can't It Fix?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! This chapter took longer than I thought it would to finish up, but I don't even feel bad about that, because I think it needed the extra time, and I'm pleased by what came of it. We got hijinks! We got shenanigans! We got action! We got romance! We got... an extra chapter, because I realized that this chapter was going to be 10k words otherwise. So enjoy! I know I sure did.

They drove up to the Revenant’s shack and found Dolls parked nearby, standing and leaning against his car as he waited for them.

Wynonna had never been so happy to see his judgy, annoying face.

They parked behind him, and Wynonna was leaping out of the jeep almost before it had stopped moving.

“Dolls,” she called sharply, striding towards him. It took more strides than usual, with Waverly’s shorter legs, which was _yet another_ annoying thing about the situation. “Fuck, am I glad to see you. We’ve got some Kandahar-level shit on our hands.”

“She is _not_ kidding,” Waverly added, exiting the driver’s side of the jeep.

He eyed them both carefully, then looked back at Wynonna with a questioning eye.

“Earp?” he asked, as if he were _mostly_ sure but still felt the need to check.

“Yeah, dummy. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I’m Wynonna. That’s Waverly. David Cop-a-feel in there did some kind of Freaky Friday _bullshit_ , and you’d better have another magic mirror or something to stop it.”

Dolls’s eyes widened. He was silent for several seconds, and then— much to her horror— he started laughing. And not some subdued little chuckle, either— huge peals that echoed through the woods around them.

That _asshole_. He _so_ wasn’t getting a thanks-for-answering-your-phone hug-slash-hand-job. To his credit, he did suppress it after a few seconds, clearing his throat and forcing a more serious expression.

“Sorry. It just sounds funny, with Waverly’s voice.” He looked between the two of them again, still actively fighting the smile off his face. “Are both of you alright otherwise? When did this happen?”

“We just woke up like this,” Waverly said, shrugging. “I fell asleep in my bed and woke up in Wynonna’s car.”

“Same. I mean, reverse, but same,” Wynonna said.

“And you think this Revenant caused it?” Dolls asked, looking towards the nearby shack.

“Do you have a better fucking explanation?!” Wynonna blazed, and Dolls had to clear his throat again to (badly) hide a snort of laughter. Wynonna shoved him in the chest, catching him off-guard and bouncing him off the side of the SUV. “This _isn’t_ funny, asshole! If you had _any_ idea what I’ve been through this morning—”

She had been _kissed_ by _Officer fucking Haught_ , for fuck’s sake, and found out that her _sister_ was _lying_ to her and apparently couldn’t _trust_ her—

“Wynonna!” Waverly cut her off hastily and attempted a nervous laugh. “I think the _important_ thing is that we just make a plan! For how we’re going to fix it. Right?” She appealed to Dolls, who didn’t even have the common courtesy to be fazed by Wynonna’s shove.

“Yeah. From what we saw yesterday, this guy seemed more like a birthday party magician than a hardcore warlock, so if he caused this, he must have had help.” Dolls pushed off from the car and started walking towards the shack.

“Like an accomplice?” Waverly asked, as she and Wynonna both followed in his wake.

“Or a magical artifact,” Dolls said.

“Which might still be in there!” Wynonna completed the thought, making the connection and feeling a small rush of relief. Maybe for once it would be that easy. Maybe they would just find whatever it was and smash it, and everything would be go back to normal.

And maybe afterwards it would start raining tequila and sexy firemen, because that was just about as likely.

* * *

They re-entered the Revenant’s shack via Dolls ‘persuading’ the door open with his shoulder.

“Isn’t this technically breaking and entering?” Waverly worried aloud as they followed him in.

“Why? Are you going to call the _cops_ on us?” Wynonna taunted, waggling her eyebrows. Waverly glared at her, then shot a paranoid glance at Dolls, who didn’t seem to be paying them any mind. Wynonna waved off her concern. “I doubt this guy is really on their radar, what with the shack in the middle of nowhere and everything.” She leaned closer. “Besides, I’m sure you could _persuade_ them not to arrest us.”

Waverly glared at her.

“You realize that if it comes to that, _you’ll_ have to do the ‘ _persuading_ ,’ remember?” she whispered back in an annoyed hiss. Wynonna’s smirk faltered.

“Oh yeah…”

Maybe that wouldn’t be such an entertaining outcome after all.

She’d really done as much cop-kissing as she could stand for one lifetime.

Supressing a shudder, she walked over to examine a rickety-looking bookcase against one wall. Every shelf was covered in trinkets— jewelry and coins and lumpy statuettes.

“Either he’s a sorcerer or he has a _real_ bad dungeons and dragons habit,” she quipped, squinting at one of the coins.

“More like a thrift shop hoarder,” Waverly mused, standing at a desk in the corner, where assorted glassware and vials were arrayed with no apparent rhyme or reason.

“It’ll take days to go through all this,” Dolls said with a sigh. He didn’t look happy. With a grimace and a shake of his head, he pulled out his cell phone. “I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this, but I’m going to try to call in a favor. See if we can narrow things down.”

“What time is it in Kandahar?” Wynonna asked, kneeling to look at the bottom shelf, which was caked in dust and held what looked like a collection of creepy music boxes.

“Doesn’t matter. He owes me. He’ll answer.” Dolls stepped outside to place the call, but ducked his head back in seconds later. “Don’t touch anything. And shout if—”

“If anything starts doing creepy magic shit, yeah, we got it covered,” Wynonna finished for him, rolling her eyes. With a classic head shake at her classic unprofessionalism, he finished exiting, shutting the door behind him.

Wynonna straightened from her crouch, brushing dust off Waverly’s jeans.

“I wonder if he even did it on purpose,” Waverly mused from across the room, now squinting at some papers tacked to the wall— either old newspapers or pages from old books, it was hard to tell which.

“Who? Dolls?”

“The Revenant. I mean, Dolls has a point. This guy is no Stone Witch. And what does he even _get_ out of this, anyway? I mean, if he’s capable of casting a spell on us, why _switch_ us? Why not _poison_ us, or do a curse, or a hex? A pox on our house? Wouldn’t _that_ be easier?”

“So you think… what, that this was some kind of accident?” It sounded far-fetched, but then again, it was Waverly talking, and Waverly’s brain was consistently about seven steps ahead of Wynonna’s at any given time, so she wasn’t about to argue.

“Maybe. I mean, we knocked a ton of stuff over when we were fighting him,” Waverly pointed out. Admittedly, their fight _had_ included some upended tables, some collisions with walls and shelves, some tripping over boxes. Wynonna gave a conciliatory nod.

“There… _may_ have been some… collateral damage,” she agreed.

“Exactly. So… What if we touched something? Or… _broke_ something? Maybe…”

“You really think—”

She was interrupted by the phone in her pocket suddenly playing Waverly’s musical ringtone. She tried not to groan as she pulled it out to see who it was. She’d never in her life _hoped_ that a telemarketer or scam robot was calling, but now she was practically _praying_ for it.

Fuck.

Haught. Again.

She should have known. Praying was the _real_ scam.

She held the phone out to Waverly so she could see the name on the screen.

“It’s your… whatever,” she said, quickly. “Why is she calling?” They had already told her that _Waverly_ would call _her_. She was supposed to be some badass cop, was she seriously this _clingy_?

“Answer it!” Waverly hissed at her, as it continued ringing. “She’s probably worried about you… me… whatever.”

“What am I supposed to—” But there wasn’t time— the phone could only ring for so long before voicemail took over, so with a growl of frustration, Wynonna answered.

“Hey… you,” she said, falling at the first hurdle as her brain stalled out wondering what Waverly would even call her girlfriend. Did they have pet names already? Now there was a gross thought. Like she needed the mental image of her sister and Officer Haught-to-Trot calling each other _sweetie pie_ or _angel face_ or _shnookums_ or whatever.

“Hey,” came Haught’s voice over the phone. “Sorry for calling. I didn’t wake you up, did I?”

Her voice still had that tone to it, that softness, that was markedly different from Wynonna’s usual conversations with her. Trading barbs in the bullpen or even trading sips of whiskey in the sheriff’s office, Haught’s voice had been normal. A little arrogant, maybe. A little bossy. About what she’d expected from a cop.

Except… maybe that _one time_ …

Wynonna’s mind flashed to the floor of the sheriff’s office, and Haught’s dreamy expression, at the time attributed to the whiskey. _I think that Waverly has spent her whole life tailoring who she is to the people she’s with. She's only now just starting to figure out what she really wants._

Huh.

_Oh._

Maybe she really _was_ that oblivious.

Waverly stepped closer, leaning her head close to listen to both sides of the phone conversation. Wynonna tilted the phone so that she could hear better, and cleared her throat with a small, fake cough.

“Uh, no,” she said. “It’s… fine. I wasn’t sleeping. What’s up?”

“Nothing. I was just about to take my lunch break and I thought I’d check in, see how you’re feeling.” She made it sound so obvious, so casual. Like that was just a thing people did for each other.

“I’m… fine,” Wynonna said, the word falling flat and feeling wholly inadequate. “I mean… not _totally_ fine. Obviously. Still sick. But… besides that, fine. Fine-ish.”

On the other end of the line, Haught seemed to pause, and Wynonna felt herself begin to sweat.

“Is Wynonna with you?”

Wynonna’s eyes slid over to Waverly, who was giving her an exasperated look, as though she would very much like to slap the phone out of her hand.

“Wynonna? Uh… yeah, she’s here. Why?”

“Just… you still sound kinda out of it. I wanted to make sure you weren’t alone.”

Wynonna paused, unsure of how to respond to that. How were people— _normal_ people— supposed to react to that kind of softness? She looked towards Waverly, who mouthed ‘THANK YOU’ and gestured with her hands, as if to say, _come on, dummy, this isn’t that complicated_.

“Uh… thaaaanks?” she said, in a tone that was _just_ a little too uncertain to be believable. Waverly’s face telegraphed that witnessing this phone call was making her die a thousand deaths. Wynonna suspected that she was going to be punched again as soon as she hung up. “Um… hold on, Wynonna’s trying to tell me something.” Before Haught could respond, she muted the call and set the phone down on the table next to her.

“How are you so bad at this?” Waverly whispered furiously, hands held out like she was barely resisting the urge to strangle her.

“Well what am I _supposed_ to say?” Wynonna asked, gesturing fruitlessly at the muted phone.

“That it was sweet of her to call, or that she doesn’t need to worry, or that you’re sorry for acting _so freaking weird_ , maybe?!” Waverly hissed.

“Oh.” Those were all pretty solid ideas, actually.

Waverly took a deep breath, seeming to force herself to calm down and be more understanding.

“Look, I _know_ this isn’t your strong suit, but this is really important to me. _She’s_ important to me. I don’t want her to feel like she’s done something wrong.” Waverly looked at her with pleading eyes. “Could you _please_ just try to be nice for like _one_ minute? Tell her you’ll call her back later, but… _try_? For me?”

Wynonna put her hands up in mock-surrender, hoping to calm the desperation in her sister’s eyes… and voice… and face… and body language… and literal words.

“ _Okay_ , okay. Give her the full Waverly. I got it.” She might not be good at this stuff, but she wasn’t about to single-handedly ruin her sister’s shot at what seemed like a decent, if bizarre, relationship. And if that meant pretending to be her sappy sister for like two minutes, then that would be her early birthday present to Waverly… or belated one, depending on whether or not her birthday had already happened yet. Truth be told, she had already forgotten its exact date again.

She picked the phone back up and unmuted it, one hand held out to keep Waverly at bay. “Hey. Sorry about that.”

“Is everything alright?” Haught sounded confused and— Waves was right— more than a little worried. Wynonna closed her eyes for a second, trying to channel her inner Waverly. With effort, she forced a bright smile onto her face.

“Yeah, everything’s fine. Ugh, sorry I’m being so weird today. I think maybe I’m running a fever or something.” She tried to say it with half a laugh, like it wasn’t a big deal. _Waverly. Sweet, sunshine-y Waverly._ “I mean, you really don’t need to worry. It doesn’t feel like anything serious. I’m just a little… scatterbrained. And honestly really tired. Maybe you’re right, I should probably be trying to sleep.”

“Whatever feels like it’ll help,” Haught said, sounding at least somewhat placated. “I won’t keep you on the phone if you want to try and nap, but my offer still stands. If you need anything, or you think of anything that would help, just call, okay?”

“I know. Thanks for calling.” Wynonna glanced at Waverly, who looked much calmer now that she was being less _weird_. Then again, weirdness was in the eye of the beholder, and this all felt pretty damn _weird_ to Wynonna. “Um… it’s sweet of you. To care.”

“Of course I care.” Haught’s voice was lightly, almost playfully scolding. “You really _have_ dated too many shitheads, haven’t you?”

_Oh, now **there’s** an interesting comment._

Wynonna raised an amused eyebrow at Waverly, who rolled her eyes— either at her or at Nicole, it was hard to say. Maybe both of them.

“At least I learned from my mistakes,” Wynonna said, pretending to flutter her eyelashes at her increasingly unamused sister. The thought that she was now flirting with her baby sister’s secret cop girlfriend was _nauseating_ , but the affronted look on Waverly’s face definitely softened the blow.

“Lucky me,” Haught said, a charming smile audible in her voice. _Barf_. “Well, get some sleep. And call me later, okay?”

“I will,” Wynonna promised, hoping with every fiber of her being that Waverly would be the one fielding that hypothetical future call. She was _way_ out of her depth, and if she had to say any more lovey-dovey nonsense to Purgatory’s rookie cop, she would _never_ be able to live with herself. “Bye.”

“Sweet dreams.” Haught hung up, and Wynonna promptly pretended to throw up on her shoes. Waverly rolled her eyes at her.

“She’s just being nice. She thinks I’m sick, remember?”

“Yeah, well… _Still_. She’s so sappy.” Not Wynonna’s best argument, but the cloying sweetness of Haught’s words was still sticking in her brain like cotton candy. “I don’t know how you can stand it.”

Waverly shook her head like her patience and tolerance were approaching their limits.

“Would you seriously rather the person I’m dating _not_ care that I’m sick? _Not_ call to check up on me? _Not_ offer to help? Would _that_ make you feel better?” Waverly asked sarcastically, her voice just a little louder and a little harsher than expected. Wynonna withered slightly under her frustrated glare. “I _like_ that she cares. It’s my favorite thing about her. It’s _nice_ , for once.”

“Hey, _I_ care about you,” Wynonna protested, not liking the caveat ‘for once.’ Sure, she hadn’t always been around, but that sure as hell wasn’t because she _didn’t care_. If anything, she’d stayed away so that Waverly would have one fewer albatross around her neck. Just carrying around the name _Earp_ was heavy enough.

Waverly deflated, some of the anger and hurt fading from her face.

“I didn’t mean…” She shook her head, chastened. “I wasn’t talking about _you_.”

“Good.” Wynonna still didn’t like the look on her face. “Waves, _tons_ of people care about you. I mean, me, obviously. And Gus. But, like… the whole _town_ loves you.”

“But they aren’t going to text me and call me every day to tell me that. Or offer to bring me things when I’m sick. Or… say something as sappy but nice as _sweet dreams_ before I go to sleep.” Waverly plucked the phone from Wynonna’s hand and held it up demonstrably. “Nicole cares… _out loud_.” She unlocked the phone and began tapping out something. “And _that’s_ kind of a first.”

Wynonna didn’t respond to that, just accepted the phone when Waverly handed it back. The screen was locked again, but it seemed safe to assume that she had sent a text to her girlfriend. It vibrated in her hand as she tried to return it to her pocket, and she glanced at the screen to see only a heart emoji sent back.

For once, Wynonna wisely chose to hold her tongue.

* * *

Dolls’s face was stormy as he re-entered the shack, pulling the door closed behind him with more force than was strictly necessary.

“What’s the word?” Wynonna asked him, although she could guess the answer.

“Nothing yet,” Dolls said shortly. “What have you two found?”

Waverly took over their side of the conversation, pointing out their likeliest culprits.

“First, we’ve got this here,” she said, pointing at a two-faced statuette of a head on the bookshelf. “That I _think_ might be Janus, the Roman god of doorways. If it is, it could have something to do with chaos and transitions and alternatives and that kinda thing. So— Janus bust— that’s a maybe.”

Wynonna snorted, and Dolls raised an eyebrow at her.

“What? She said ‘bust,’” she defended herself. Dolls shook his head.

“This is never going to stop being weird. Wynonna, saying all the research stuff, and Waverly laughing at _bust_ jokes.” He sighed, and she glared at him. He ignored her. Waverly plowed ahead, raising her voice slightly and pretending that neither of them had interrupted her.

“Our second maybe is that mirror over there with a crack down the middle.” Waverly pointed towards the desk, then screwed up her face in a theatrically skeptical expression. “ _But_ I don’t think that’s it, because it’s really dusty, like nobody’s touched it in a long time, so I don’t think we could have done anything to it yesterday.”

Dolls peered at it himself, checking it from different angles, then nodded in agreement.

“No one’s moved it in months, maybe years,” he acknowledged, and Waverly beamed proudly— yet _another_ expression that Wynonna didn’t love seeing on her own face. Let alone _Dolls_ seeing it on her face…

“Right! That’s what I thought. So this is the one that gets my vote.” She walked over to an end table by the door and gestured to it as if saying _ta-da!_

Sitting atop the table was an antique-looking brass locket with a visibly broken hinge and some sort of design etched into it.

“A locket?” Dolls said.

“A _broken_ locket,” Waverly agreed. “That happens to be by the door, where we all were yesterday during the fight. _And_ —” She grinned like she was just getting to the best part. “Looking at the etchings on the back, I _think_ I can make out the Latin word _silenda_ , which means something that is supposed to be kept _silent_ about. Which sounds a lot like a reference to a secret magic word of some kind.”

“Interesting…” Dolls knelt down by the table. “It’s hard to know for sure without being able to see the inside…”

“If there are pictures inside, that could tell us more,” Waverly agreed. “Or maybe a lock of hair, or some kind of message!”

Dolls pulled a pen from his pocket and tried to gingerly lift one half of the locket off the other, while Waverly watched, eagerly but anxiously. It seemed like he couldn’t get the right angle, the brass clamshell sliding off the pen over and over again and falling back into the same position.

After sixty _absolutely torturous_ seconds of watching the pitiful attempt, Wynonna had finally had enough. Rolling her eyes, she stomped over and just swiped the locket from the tabletop, opening it in her hand. Waverly gave an uneasy whimper of protest and Dolls covered his eyes with his hand in exasperation.

“ _What_?!” Wynonna snapped. “We don’t have all goddamn day for you to stand around playing _Operation_ with it. If it’s what caused this hot mess, it’s already done its damage, so why _not_ pick it up?”

Not waiting for his answer, she looked into the two haves of the locket. Each half’s interior had a picture in it, but the pictures were blurry, as if they had been taken through a haze of smoke. She squinted down at them, trying to make them out.

If she squinted _really_ hard and used a _lot_ of imagination… they kind of looked like pictures of her and Waverly.

“Ding ding ding, we have a winner.” She held it out so that Waverly could look at it. “Those look like us to you?”

Waverly peered down into the locket, frowning in concentration.

“Not really…” she said, then moved her face closer, squinting. “Well… Kinda?”

“Close enough for me,” Wynonna said.

“You think we broke it on our way out the door?”

“Maybe. Or like you said, maybe we both touched it, or maybe something our friend Davie said triggered it.”

“If it _is_ the locket that caused this,” Dolls jumped in, “then there could be an incantation that activates it. Or some kind of ritual. And it might not even work at all in this condition.”

“Can we get it fixed?” Waverly asked, eyeing the broken hinge. Dolls scratched at some stubble on his chin, looking thoughtful.

“If there’s a watchmaker in town, or maybe some kind of antiques dealer, they might have the right tools. But this looks pretty delicate.”

“What if we just kill him?” Wynonna suggested. Dolls frowned at the suggestion.

“If he cast the spell himself, then that _usually_ would end it, but not always. Some spells can’t be reversed except by the caster,” he explained. Wynonna sighed in disappointment, setting the locket back on the table and going back to wandering around the room. The messy, enclosed space was starting to make her claustrophobic.

“Carla at the pawn shop fixes jewelry sometimes, but nothing like this,” Waverly said to Dolls, apparently racking her brain for anyone in town who could repair an antique, possibly magical locket.

“What about—” Dolls started, just as Wynonna’s gaze alighted on the one object that would be their savior.

“AHA!” she shouted, causing both of her companions to jump, startled. She reached into a rusted-out toolbox next to the couch and straightened victoriously, holding it aloft.

“We are _not_ fixing the powerful magic locket with _duct tape_ ,” Dolls said, pinching the bridge of his nose between two fingers as if warding off a headache.

“Why not?” she asked. It made sense in her head, at least to a point. Was it really _that_ much different from fixing it with wire and solder and whatever else? How would the locket even know the difference? It was an inanimate object. The two halves were broken apart? Duct tape could fix that.

She expected Waverly to take Dolls’s side, but she cocked her head to the side thoughtfully, as though she were considering it.

“ _Could_ it work?” She sounded like she was mostly asking herself, but Dolls had already begun shaking his head.

“You know, sometimes I forget you two are even related, and then suddenly, it hits me all over again.”

“Hey!” Wynonna and Waverly said in unison, both hearing the implicit insult.

“I just mean—”

Whatever lame and unconvincing excuse Dolls had been planning to say was cut off in the sudden, earth-shattering **_BOOM_ **of a shotgun blast, and the ear-splitting **_CRACK_** of the door splintering into a million pieces. Both heralded the Revenant David Cop-a-feel himself bursting into the shack, holding a sawed-off shotgun and sporting a wild grin.

“Waverly!” Wynonna yelled on instinct, but her sister had been standing to the side, _thank christ_ , and was spared all but maybe a few splinters.

Dolls, on the other hand, had been missed by the shotgun blast but not by the door’s impact, and he was sprawled on the ground next to the toppled end table. The locket had fallen onto his chest. “Dolls! Heads up!” Wynonna threw the roll of duct tape towards him as she charged the Revenant, kicking out one of his legs and trying to wrest the gun from his hand. He staggered at the unexpected blow, but regained his footing within seconds. They grappled fruitlessly over the shotgun, neither quite gaining the upper hand. “God— _damn—_ it!”

Waverly’s height disadvantage wasn’t doing Wynonna any favors. Her sister was no weakling, but she was _small_ , and it was hard to get leverage on the much taller, much bigger Revenant.

“Hey jerkwad! Let go of her! Or— let go of _me_!” Waverly barreled in from the side, ramming into both of them with her shoulder, jarring the Revenant’s hand and sending all three of them crashing to the floor in the entryway. “Ow.”

Wynonna was the first to struggle to her knees, while Waverly had mostly fallen on top of the Revenant, pinning him. Reaching out from underneath her, his hand groped blindly on the ground for the shotgun he had dropped.

“No way, Mindfreak.” Wynonna dropped her knee on the Revenant’s hand and leaned her full weight on it. He cried out, trying to pull free, while Waverly struggled to keep him pinned.

Unfortunately, neither of them were at their best at the moment. Fighting Revenants was hard enough when they were in the bodies they had lived and trained with. Trying to coordinate unfamiliar bodies, both of their combat skills were suffering.

With some effort, the magician wrenched his hand free from under Wynonna’s knee and then used it to shove Waverly off of himself. She landed on top of his shotgun (luckily) with an obvious grunt of pain (unluckily).

Though unable to reclaim his weapon, he did manage to retreat a scant few steps, back towards the wall, while Wynonna scrambled to her feet.

“Wave!” She held her hand out to her sister and helped pull her upright.

“When you get this body back, you’re going to have a shotgun imprinted on your butt. Hope that’s okay,” Waverly said through clenched teeth.

“Always wanted a tattoo there,” Wynonna said, her eyes still tracking the Revenant as he tried to circle around them. “Dolls, how’s that locket coming?”

“Working on it,” he said, not sounding happy about that fact. His annoyed voice was punctuated by the sound of ripping tape.

The Revenant lunged at them, and in the proudest moment of Wynonna’s life, Waverly grabbed one leg of the end table from where it lay on the floor and swung it in a wide arc, shattering it over his head.

“Hell yeah! That’s my girl!” Wynonna shouted, grinning wildly. She had expected that to be the end of the fight, but the magician, admittedly looking worse for wear, stumbled back, still annoyingly conscious.

Wynonna followed her sister’s example, scooping up a dented bucket from the floor and hurling it towards the Revenant, trying to keep him on the defensive. He held up an arm and it bounced off. Waverly found a copper tea kettle next, and Wynonna a pair of steel-toed boots, all thrown one by one into his face as he flailed to keep them from connecting.

“Jackpot!” Wynonna looked over at Waverly’s shout, and saw her sister wielding a huge, half-rusted cast iron skillet. “Batter up!”

They both got a split-second to enjoy the horror in the Revenant’s eyes right before the almighty **_CLANG_** of impact. His face well and truly smashed, he made a halfhearted move to crawl towards the door, but Wynonna moved directly into his path.

“Enough foreplay. Let’s end this.”

Wynonna’s hand reached automatically to her side, but there was nothing there. _Of course_ there was nothing there. She hadn’t even been _thinking—_

Urgently, she rounded on Waverly.

“Peacemaker,” she said.

And bless Waverly, she immediately drew the gun from where it was holstered at her side, holding it with something like amazement. She looked at Wynonna, then at the Revenant, then turned, standing tall, Peacemaker in hand.

“My turn,” she breathed, and the tone of her voice— reverent, proud, almost relieved— nearly shredded Wynonna’s heart. This was it, the thing Waverly had wanted her whole life. Just this one time, she got to actually _be_ Wynonna. She got to be the Earp Heir.

She took aim, and pulled the trigger.

The gun clicked uselessly.

The runes flickered and died.

Somehow, it knew.

Crushing disappointment shrouded Waverly’s features, and in that moment, if Wynonna could have moved heaven and earth to reassign her Heir-ness to Waverly, she would have done it. Fuck the danger and the pressure and everything else, she would have done it just to take that look off her sister’s face.

(Well… it was _technically_ her own face, but still. The point stood.)

Lucky for her, Waverly wasn’t the type to wallow. With a sharp call of, “Wynonna!” she tossed the gun across the room. Wynonna caught it, and the sigils on the barrel lit up like flames, as if they recognized her.

“That’s more like it,” Wynonna said. She leveled the glowing gun at her quivering target, gave him about two seconds to make his peace, and fired, sending the bullet straight into his smashed-in forehead. “How’s _that_ for a disappearing act,” was the last thing she managed to say as flames sucked him down.

“Got it!” Dolls shouted from the corner, just as the Revenant vanished. He held up what mostly looked like a wad of silver duct tape, but was presumably the mended locket.

Wynonna was just about to make some snappy, mildly insulting retort when everything seemed to lurch around her, twisting and spinning like the inside of a kaleidoscope. Her whole body went numb, and there was a roaring in her ears. Right when she thought she was either going to pass out or start hurling, everything stopped.

She blinked, disoriented. She was suddenly on the other side of the room, and she was taller, and _shit_ , she really _did_ have a hangover. There was that familiar pain behind her eye. She really needed to remember to stop bringing whiskey on stakeouts. There was also an _unfamiliar_ pain in the shape of a shotgun in her ass, but she was even grateful for _that_.

She raised her hands, pawing at herself, making sure it was all real. Her hands seized her boobs, and _hallelujah_ , they were actually _her_ boobs. She was back.

“Oh, thank fuck,” she breathed, turning to look at Waverly, who she expected to be celebrating in the same vein. But her younger sister was standing still and silent, her eyes fixed on her own hand holding Peacemaker, which was still smoking at the tip, fresh from sending a demon back to hell.

Wynonna felt her heart sink.

“Hey,” she said, crossing the room to where her sister stood frozen. She grasped her by the shoulders, and Waverly seemed to come back into the moment, shaking her head and blinking.

“I’m fine,” she said, unconvincingly.

“Better than fine,” Wynonna insisted, pulling her into a somewhat forceful hug. “You’re the best, remember?”

Maybe Haught kind of had the right idea with the ‘caring out loud’ thing. Sometimes, at least. Every once in awhile. She didn’t need to go making an everyday habit of it or anything.

Waverly didn’t hug her back. But she didn’t try to pull away either, so at least that was something.

When Wynonna finally pulled back, Waverly held out Peacemaker to her.

“Here.”

Wynonna took the gun back, feeling guilty and horrible even under all the wonderful, sweeping relief.

“I’m sorry,” she said, meaning it. Waverly shook her head.

“You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I know, but this… I know it can’t have been easy to watch.” Wynonna held her gun, their great-grandfather’s gun, in her hands for a moment, then slid it back into its holster. At her side. Where it belonged.

“Yeah, well… What else is new?” Waverly said it like a joke, but it fell flat. “It’s okay. Really.” She gently shoved Wynonna’s arm. “I’m just glad it’s all over.”

“Yeah, no kidding.” Wynonna, one hand covering the fresh bruise on her ass, looked over to Dolls, who was still staring at the duct-taped locket with something like despair. “See? What’d I tell you? Duct tape fixes everything.”

Dolls shook his head in disbelief.

“Maybe. Or maybe sending him to hell broke the spell. Either way, I’m sending this off to the lab for testing. As amusing as this was, I’d rather it didn’t happen again. Ever.”

“Hey, no disagreements here.” Wynonna held both hands up in surrender.

“What about the rest of this stuff?” Waverly asked, looking around the room at all the coins and trinkets and pseudo-magical paraphernalia.

“Probably just junk. But I’ll request a team to collect it, just in case,” he said. “No need to take any chances.”

He pulled out his phone.

“Do we have to stay here for that part?” Wynonna asked, watching Waverly out of the corner of her eye. She looked basically fine, but there was a a downward tilt to her head and a slump to her shoulders that Wynonna didn’t like.

“You have someplace better to be?” he asked.

“Yeah, _home_. My body hasn’t seen a shower since yesterday morning, and after rolling around on that floor, I’ve got dust in places you probably don’t want to hear about.” She flashed him a cheeky smile, and he rolled his eyes.

And the world was finally back on track.

“Fine,” he said shortly. “You can go. I’ll stay here and secure the scene. Call me and let me know if you experience any… side effects.”

Before he had time to change his mind, she seized Waverly’s arm (which was _really_ Waverly’s arm this time, _thank god_ ) and dragged her outside.

* * *

When they reached the Jeep, Wynonna automatically went to the passenger side, before realizing that the keys were in her pocket.

“Do you want to—” she started to ask Waverly, but Waverly had taken her phone out, and was leaning against the hood of the car. Wynonna was no rocket surgeon, but it didn't take a genius to guess that Waverly was calling her very confused girlfriend. She fell silent as her sister pressed the phone to her ear and started talking.

“Hey, it’s me. Um… sorry to call you at work. I just… wanted to tell you that I got some sleep and I’m feeling a lot better now. I know you’ve probably been sitting there worrying all day, but… I’m totally fine now, I promise.” She paused, apparently listening to whatever Haught was saying back, and a small, genuine smile seemed to tug at her lips. Against all her instincts, Wynonna felt suddenly grateful for that damn cop and whatever ‘caring out loud’ things she must be saying on the other end of the line. “Yeah, I’m going to stay home and rest up a little longer just in case.” Waverly paused, listening to the answer. “I will.” The smile stretched a little wider. “What time do you work tomorrow?” The answer must have not been what she wanted, because Waverly’s face fell slightly in disappointment. “Oh.” Her growing smile went into retreat. “Yeah, maybe. I’ll call you later, okay?” Another short pause. “Okay. Thanks. Bye.”

The hand with the phone dropped to her side.

“Everything okay?” Wynonna asked.

“Yeah, I think so,” Waverly said, tucking the phone away. She did look somewhat revived by the call, even if it hadn’t seemed to end the way she’d wanted. Some of the slump in her shoulders had bounced back, and there was more light in her eyes.

“You sure?” Wynonna wheedled, squinting at her. Waverly smirked at her playful skepticism.

“Yeah. I’m good.” She held her hand out, and Wynonna tossed the keys into them. “So what now?”

Wynonna hauled herself up into the passenger seat and groaned theatrically as she landed on her bruise. She screwed up her face in a comically over-the-top wince, and Waverly seemed to unsuccessfully smother a laugh at her expense.

There was nothing quite like a younger sibling laughing at your pain to make you remember the true meaning of family.

“Now, baby girl, you and I are going _home_ , and we’re gonna get _extremely_ _drunk_ ,” she said definitively. Waverly shook her head, starting the car and adjusting the seat forward.

“That’s your answer to everything,” she said, her voice mocking yet affectionate. Wynonna leaned back in the seat and closed her eyes.

“And you would be _shocked_ how often it’s the best answer.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really debated whether the curse would recognize Wynonna herself as the heir or Wynonna’s _body_ as the heir, but in the end, how Peacemaker works and who can or can’t shoot it seems pretty arbitrary, so I just went for the highest drama option. But I was really on the fence about it. I also intentionally left it a bit ambiguous whether the locket was the solution or not, in case I want to write a future follow-up someday.
> 
> Anyway, keep an eye out for the next chapter, the "sisterly bonding" chapter, and a final fluff chapter after that. And drop a comment if you're enjoying the ride. See you soon!


	3. Tell Me All About It

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's been awhile, huh? Not sure what happened here. About 70% of this chapter has been around since I posted the first one of this fic, but I couldn't put it all together for some reason, and then I got distracted writing approximately one million one-shots, and then the new season aired..... Anyway, I'm back! Mostly because there are some parts of this chapter I really enjoy and I want them to see the light of day. I hope you all enjoy this sisterly bonding. If you do, I'd love you to drop a comment, or you can come bug me on Twitter @Absolute_Hammer. But the important part is, enjoy the ride!

Wynonna and Waverly returned to the homestead and fell instantly into a bottle of whiskey and a bottle of bubblegum saké, respectively. It was the Earp way.

“So do you think it was the Revenant or the locket?” Waverly asked, as if she’d been mulling the question over since the shack.

“I think I don’t give a shit, as long as it’s fixed now.” Wynonna pushed her chair back from the table so she could prop her feet up on its edge. The hard wooden seat didn’t do her bruised ass any favors, but she didn’t feel like moving.

“I think it was the locket.” Waverly’s phone interrupted her by vibrating against the table, and she picked it up, smiling at the incoming text.

“Officer Ginger Spice?” Wynonna guessed. She didn’t even need Waverly to confirm it— that dopey, shiny look in her eyes did the job for her.

“Yeah.” Waverly set the phone back down with a sigh. “I hope she’s not too freaked out from today.”

Wynonna shrugged.

“She seemed okay when she called. And if she’s still sane after that whole Jack of Knives shit, I don’t think you acting weird for one day is going to scare her off.”

“Yeah, maybe…”

Waverly still had a small, worried crease in her forehead, so Wynonna nudged her with one of her boots, trying to steal more of her attention.

“Hey, come on. She obviously isn’t _that_ freaked out if she hasn’t stopped sending you sappy texts literally all day.”

As if on cue, the phone buzzed again with _yet another_ incoming text, and Waverly’s lips twitched into a reluctant smile.

“You’re probably right.” She picked up the phone again and her face turned slightly pink, a flustered giggle escaping her lips. Wynonna clutched her stomach in mock-nausea.

“Ugh, maybe it’s good I couldn’t open your phone. The last thing I need is to see a bunch of naked selfies from the local LEOs.” She faked an over-the-top cringe at the thought, and took an extra-long draw from the whiskey bottle, as though cleansing her mind of the image. She was close to hitting that alcoholic sweet spot, the just-past-buzzed golden hour of peace and relaxation where her past and her future were both far-away and unimportant.

“It’s not— We’ve never—” Waverly sputtered, blushing harder, which was a _very_ interesting reaction for someone who had received a never-ending barrage of dick pics from her previous beau.

“Wow, look at you, all red. You never got that way with Chump.” The insult was more of a Freudian slip than an intentional barb, but she let it stand. He _was_ a chump, and they both knew it. Waverly didn’t even bother correcting her, which just proved the point.

“It’s just… different, with her. I don’t know why. It’s still so new, but it’s… different. She’s… special.”

“Gross,” Wynonna said— apparently unconvincingly, since Waverly just shook her head, smiling. _Clearly_ not falling for the lie. “I guess I don’t even have to ask if she’s treating you right. Got to see it first-hand. Turns out the new deputy is a total softie.” She remembered Haught’s concerned face and voice when she thought Waverly was sick, offering to help, checking that she wasn’t alone.

“She’s really sweet,” Waverly agreed.

“Yeah.” Wynonna frowned thoughtfully, and shot her sister a questioning look. “Literally, kinda. Am I crazy, or did she taste just like donuts?”

“I KNOW, RIGHT?” Waverly sat up straighter, eyes wide, like she had been _dying_ to talk with someone about this. “She _always_ does. Vanilla dipped donuts. The _best_ ones. It’s amazing.”

Wynonna waved her hand in an _okay, that’s enough_ gesture, emphatically _not_ needing a five-paragraph essay about what the new deputy _tasted_ like.

“Probably beats whatever Champ tasted like. Cheap beer and failure, I’m guessing.”

 _Cheap beer, failure, and other girls’ mouths_ , Wynonna added in her head, but kept the addition to herself.

Waverly, taking another— clearly reluctant— sip from the saké bottle, snorted an equally reluctant laugh.

“Pretty much,” she admitted. She wrinkled her nose, either at the aftertaste of the saké or the remembered taste of Champ. “And beef jerky.”

Wynonna mimed hurling, and Waverly kicked her under the table. “Shut up,” she grumbled. “Limited dating options, remember?”

“So why stay with him once… _Officer Better Option_ showed up?” Wynonna asked. Waverly held her hands up defensively.

“I didn’t even know who she _was_ when she asked me out. I mean, besides a police officer.” She shook her head and grabbed the bottle again. “Plus, it was weird and I didn’t know what to say, and I really needed to put my shirt back on—”

_What?_

Fucking **_what_**???

“Okay, hit the brakes. Back up. _What_?”

“Um… I had to put my shirt back on?” Waverly repeated, cringing with embarrassment.

“Wait, she busted in on you while you were _undressing_?” No way. Sweet or not, Haught was fucking toast. Dead meat. Stick a fork in her. The world was going to find out if Peacemaker could send real people screaming to hell, too.

“No, she was already there when I took it off.”

Wynonna’s plans for Haught’s violent death paused as she processed this, attempting a timeline in her head: Haught enters. Waves removes shirt. Haught asks Waves out. Waves says no, she’s too busy riding the dumbest tool in town. End scene.

She shook her head.

“Okay. I give up. Explain.”

“Does it really matter?” Waverly groaned pitifully.

“Fucking _yes_. You _cannot_ just drop the fact that you were _topless_ for this conversation like it doesn’t call for the full story.” Wynonna banged her hand on the table to quell any forthcoming protests. “Come on, story time! Chop chop!”

“Fine…” Waverly took an extra-large gulp from her bottle, then coughed like her body was fighting to keep the cursed bubblegum liquor out… which frankly seemed like a good sign, health-wise. Finally, she had collected herself enough to speak. “Okay… so…”

* * *

By the end of the story, Wynonna was shaking her head in silent amazement.

“So you accidentally hose yourself down with beer, and she fucking _teleports_ onto the scene like she got a cosmic notification on her phone—”

“Wynonna, she just wanted coffee.” Waverly pinched the bridge of her nose as if bracing herself for the rest of Wynonna’s recap.

“At a _bar_ , first thing in the goddamn morning?” Wynonna shook her head, some mix of horrified and gleeful and disbelieving that could only be accomplished while drunk.

“Nedley orders coffee there all the time, he probably told her—” Waverly tried to argue, but Wynonna shushed her.

“So she makes some pass at you about wet T-shirt contests, it flies _straight_ over your head—”

“It was just a joke. Anyone could have—”

“She orders coffee, you tell her to buzz off, she doesn’t, so you decide to _take your shirt off_ —”

“That wasn’t—”

“ _Why_ would you take your shirt off? While she’s still there? While the front door is open?”

It was the dumbest, funniest thing she had ever heard of Waverly doing, and she felt honored to now know about it.

This would be _decades_ worth of blackmail material.

“I had her turn around, it’s not like she was _watching_ —”

“No, like what was your game plan? Do you keep extra shirts behind the counter?”

“I was going to rinse it in the sink.”

“Again, _while she’s just standing there_? And then what, put it back on soaking wet?”

“Look, I hadn’t thought it all through, okay? I was a little flustered.”

“So she’s standing there for no particular reason anymore, because she knows you aren’t open and aren’t going to serve her, and you’re standing behind her, just… _stripping_ …”

Waverly buried her face in her hands as if she could hide from the story.

“This is exactly why I didn’t want to tell you this,” she moaned.

“You get literally stuck with your shirt half-off, so… so you ask her to _help_ take your shirt off. This woman who has already made _at least_ two passes at you.”

“It made sense at the time.”

“So she comes over and _takes your shirt off_. And asks you out _again_. And _that’s_ when you actually realize what’s happening? When you’re standing there, wet and shirtless, after she helped you undress?” Wynonna rubbed her face with both hands. “Baby girl, you are the smartest person I know, but that is some _dumb_ shit.”

“It was just… unexpected! I’ve never been asked out by a woman before.”

Wynonna raised a skeptical eyebrow at her.

“From this conversation, it’s possible that every woman you’ve ever met has asked you out, and you just didn’t notice because they didn’t do it three times in a row while taking your clothes off.”

Waverly glared, but apparently couldn’t come up with a reasonable retort. Wynonna claimed victory in her head, riding high on a wave of superiority.

People who claimed sibling rivalry ended in adulthood were liars.

“Give me that.” Waverly pushed the saké bottle away and swiped Wynonna’s whiskey instead.

More evidence that she had a good brain and could make good decisions when she wanted to.

“So after all that, she just kept asking you out until you said yes?” Wynonna asked, guessing the end of the story. Waverly, halfway through a gulp of whiskey, lowered the bottle to speak.

“No, actually. She just kinda… stuck around. I mean, she’d still smile at me and talk to me like she was interested, but she didn’t push for anything. It’s like she was just… waiting for me. To catch up.”

Wynonna’s opinion of Haught rose measurably.

“So what changed your mind?”

“I don’t know. Nothing. Everything. She was just… _there_. Right in front of me. All the time. Just… _existing_. Just… _being nice_. And sweet. And… _stupidly_ gorgeous. And looking at me like…” Waverly made a vague, frustrated gesture. Wynonna nodded knowingly.

“Yeah, trust me, I saw the look on her face this morning when she was looking at me. You know, when she thought she was looking at you. I thought her eyes were going to turn into little cartoon hearts and float away.”

“I know. It’s like that all the time.” She shook her head, but this time she was smiling, and her eyes were bright, bright, bright. _Ugh._ Wynonna wondered if she should just start reconciling herself now to being future sisters-in-law with Deputy Haught. Gross. Well, at least she could give an adequately humiliating toast at their wedding, if this story was anything to go by. “But I kept thinking ‘I can’t,’ or ‘what if it’s not as great as I expect it to be.’ Or, ‘what if it changes how everyone thinks of me?’”

“Then fuck ‘em,” Wynonna said, very wisely in her opinion. Why didn’t more people come to her for advice? She obviously knew what she was talking about. “Look at me. Everyone here hates me, and I don’t give two flying fucks what they think. Because _you_ don’t hate me. And…” She tried to think of more examples. “Uh, Doc doesn’t hate me. And sometimes Dolls doesn’t hate me. And probably a few other people don’t hate me.” She tried to rack her brain more, but everything was kind of floating. “Oh, and Haught! I don’t think she hates me.”

“She doesn’t. If anything, she might even think of you as a friend.”

“That’s dumb,” Wynonna said, although it didn’t sound as convincing out loud as it did in her head. And she didn’t like the weird, surprise happy-ish relief-type feeling that came from the thought of maybe having _one_ ally in town. “Well, I guess she’s alright. Given the options.” She got the feeling that Waverly saw through her, but continued feigning nonchalance. “But anyway, the point is that the people who _matter_ don’t hate me. At least not all the time.”

“I don’t want _anyone_ to hate me,” Waverly said, her expression falling just enough to be noticeable.

Waverly was— had _always_ been— a people pleaser. They’d each had their ways of surviving their childhood. Wynonna had done it by armoring herself in spikes and shields, but Waverly had armored herself in mirrors instead. Waverly became whatever other people wanted her to be, and they loved her for it. She always _had_ been the smart one.

“You know, this embarrassingly drippy ginger flatfoot once told me that she thinks you’ve spent your whole life tailoring who you are to the people you’re with. And that you’re only just now starting to figure out what you really want. Was she right?”

Waverly’s eyes dropped down to her phone. Wynonna tried not to imagine how crammed-full that phone must be with sappy texts, heart emojis, and (god forbid) amateur love poetry.

“Hey,” Wynonna tried again, gentler this time. “You’re this whole town’s favorite daughter. Some of them might not like it, but they’ll get over it, because they like _you_. And you’ll always have me. And Gus. And… just… _tons_ of people. Okay? So what if you’re dating a woman? Who freaking cares? She’s probably the _least_ embarrassing person you’ve dated in your whole life. You don’t have to worry.”

Waverly cracked a smile as Wynonna rambled herself into the ground.

“Thanks, Wynonna.”

She toyed with her phone again, and Wynonna narrowed her eyes at her, trying to figure out what was going through her head.

“You looked… I dunno, _sad_ … after you called her. Back at the shack,” Wynonna probed gently, watching for her reaction.

“Oh, that.” Waverly grimaced. “I was hoping I could see her tomorrow, but it’s her day off.”

Wynonna was the first to admit that she wasn’t always the sharpest crayon in the box, but she couldn’t quite make sense of that one. She mulled it over for a few seconds, came up empty, and promptly gave up.

“So?” she asked. “Why would that stop you?”

“It’s just…” Waverly furrowed her brow, like she couldn’t quite figure out how to articulate her thought process. “I mostly only see her at work. I mean, that’s basically who she is. She’s a cop. It’s like… hard-wired into her.”

“But she does _have_ a home, right? Like, she doesn’t sleep under Nedley’s desk at the station?” It was a joke, but come to think of it, it _would_ explain a few things.

“Yeah. But… that’s the problem. She has this whole other life that I know _nothing_ about. I’ve only even seen her out of uniform, like, twice. I’ve never even been to her house. I don’t know what she _does_ when she isn’t at work. What if I don’t fit into _that_ part of her life?”

“Man, you’re on a roll today with saying dumb shit.” Waverly slumped at her words, so she reached over and ruffled her hair like she was six again. “I saw the way she looked at you, baby girl. I heard the way she talked to you. That lovestruck jackass would take a _sledgehammer_ to her home life if that’s what it took to fit you in.”

Waverly sighed morosely.

“She’s invited me to her house like fifteen times,” she admitted. Wynonna rolled her eyes and groaned melodramatically.

“And you couldn’t take a hint?” For being the smart one in the family, her sister seemed to have one huge redheaded blind spot. “If I were her, I’d start to think you weren’t interested.”

“No, I _am_ , I just…” Waverly sighed dejectedly. “I don’t know. I just feel like once we start seeing each other outside of work, things will start to get really serious.”

“They aren’t already?”

“No, like _more_ serious. Like, everyone in town is going to know. They’ll see my car at her house. They’ll see us together.”

“Well, yeah. But we already talked about that. If they have a problem with it, fuck ‘em. As long as you’re happy.”

Waverly nodded, but Wynonna still wasn’t sure she was convinced. She still kept her eyes mostly on the table, half-watching her phone.

“She has cat,” Waverly said, apropos of nothing, after several minnutes of quiet. Wynonna furrowed her brow.

“Okay…”

“And I want to _meet_ her cat,” Waverly elaborated. “She named her Calamity Jane, which is a _really_ great cat name. And she sends pictures of her sometimes, and talks about the cute things she does.”

“Cool…?” Wynonna kept trying to follow, but couldn’t quite find the start of the thread.

“And I want to see what’s on her bookshelves. And what her house looks like. And what kinds of movies she watches. And what’s in her fridge. And whether it’s something in her soap that makes her smell like vanilla all the time or if it’s just _her_.”

 _Oh_ , okay. So that was it. Her baby sister’s big, busy brain was dedicating a good 90% of its horsepower to speculating about Nicole Haught’s private life, and it was probably driving her low-key insane.

It was a wonder there was anything left to fight Revenants with.

“So call her,” Wynonna said simply.

“Tomorrow?” Waverly’s fingers tapped restlessly on the tabletop, inches away from her phone.

“Or now.”

Her eyebrows shot up.

“Tonight?”

Wynonna nodded.

“Yeah. Call her tonight.” She shrugged. “You know you want to. You’re, like, twitching. Why wait?”

The fingers inched closer to the phone.

“Isn’t that kind of springing it on her?”

Wynonna rolled her eyes.

“Did you hear what I said about the sledgehammer? Because I can tell you right now that if you call her and ask to come over, she’d break down her own door to let you in.”

“But won’t it seem like… you know… a booty call?”

“So?” Wynonna said, not seeing the problem. She had a brief flashback of pulling away from Haught’s kiss, and the redhead backing off instantly, doe-eyed and apologetic. “If she thinks it is, just tell her it’s not. She’s a big girl, she’ll be fine.” An alternative occurred to her, and she shrugged ambivalently. “Or jump her bones. Either way.”

Maybe that would clear her mind and free up all that Haught-infested brain space.

“Wynonna…” Waverly scolded, a faint tinge of color rising in her cheeks. She bit down on her lip briefly. “You really think she won’t mind?”

Wynonna groaned aloud. She dragged herself to her feet, grabbed up the whiskey bottle, then after a second thought, grabbed up the saké bottle as well. The stuff was sickly sweet and made her want to gag, but if she ran out of whiskey, it could be her emergency backup.

“That’s it. I give up. I’m outta here. Just call her.”

As she retreated to her room, carrying both liquor bottles by the neck, she glanced back once and saw her baby sister sitting at the table thumbing her phone, looking nervous but hopeful, the light in her eyes brighter than Wynonna had seen it in… years. Decades, maybe.

Yep… She was just going to have to get used to this…

Good thing they kept that liquor cabinet well-stocked, because she was going to need it…

But if this was what finally made Waverly happy…

Well…

That was worth just about anything…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen, I love the WayHaught meetcute, but also it's ridiculous, and I could not resist the idea of Wynonna roasting her sister for it. It's my favorite part. Thanks for reading, and I'll see you next chapter!


	4. My Port in a Storm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I know we're all kind of sitting in our feelings right now. I am, too. I was going to wait to post this because hey, people are distracted right now, and I just posted the "Things We Do For Love" update yesterday, and a lot of folks are posting today so maybe it'll get lost in the shuffle... But I wanted to post it today.
> 
> Partly because it's kind of soft and comforting, and we all know I love me some soft early WayHaught.
> 
> But also because I've always considered this fic my love letter to canon at its best. A love letter to the Earp Sisters, to WayHaught, to magical hijinks, to raunchy jokes, to fun chaos, and to love in all its forms. And I'm not saying that makes it my _best_ work by any means, but it's the one that most reminds me of how I felt the first time I watched Season One. And so it seems fitting to post it now, as we're staring the end of the show in the face and hoping it blinks first.
> 
> Anyway, here's to the shitshow we love. I hope when you read this fic it reminds you of it at its chaotic-good best.

* * *

* * *

“Hey,” Nicole said, after opening the door to Waverly standing on her doormat. Off-duty now, the deputy was wearing a sweater and jeans, and her hair was down, and it was so _very_ different from seeing her in uniform. She looked so much softer in plain clothes. And she even carried herself differently, her shoulders more rounded, her stance looser. After her long, weird day, Waverly would have happily stood there and just stared at her for hours. “Come on in.”

Nicole stepped back from the door, and Waverly entered into what looked like her living room. A row of boots were neatly lined up on a mat by the door, and jackets and hats hung from a coatrack. There was a blue couch with colorful blankets draped over the back, in front of a blue bookshelf, and gauzy blue curtains on the window.

Clearly _someone_ had a favorite color. Waverly stowed that information for future reference while Nicole took her coat and hung it neatly on the crowded coatrack.

“Do you want a quick tour… or… I know you had something you wanted to talk about.” It was hard to read her expression, but somewhere in the mix of emotions, there was a flicker of nervousness.

“Not really. I mean, not anything specific,” Waverly said quickly, hoping to put any Big Talk worries at ease. She knew that it was probably alarming to get a _can-I-come-over_ text out of nowhere, especially after she’d been acting weird all day, and especially given that she’d always avoided coming over before.

“You sure?” Nicole asked, looking like she was trying to read her.

“Yeah. It’s just… Today was a really crazy day, and after all of it… I just kinda wanted to see you.” Waverly looked up, feeling uncharacteristically shy. Somehow, this felt more vulnerable than just tackling her against a couch and kissing her. “Is that okay?”

Nicole’s face slowly lit up, like a sunrise. It might have been the most beautiful sight Waverly had ever seen.

“That is very, _very_ okay. Come here.”

Nicole raised her arms slightly, and Waverly stepped gratefully into them. Her body was warm, and smelled like vanilla, and it was _exactly_ what Waverly had needed. She wrapped her arms around Nicole and rested her head against her shoulder, letting the day’s tension drain away.

This was nice. Different from what they’d done so far, which was basically just longing looks from across the room and occasional make-out sessions in Nedley’s office. They’d talked about other things, in a sort of hypothetical sense— dates, dinners, whatever— but so far nothing concrete had come to pass.

Until now.

But now, her face was buried in Nicole’s sweater, and Nicole’s arms were holding her tight, and it was just… _nice_. Sweet. Simple. Safe.

They stayed that way for longer than Waverly would have usually considered normal, just soaking in the comfort. She kept waiting for Nicole to pull away or ask some probing question about her day, but she never did. They just stood there, twined together in Nicole’s entryway.

Finally, Waverly felt steady enough to pull away. Nicole released her, and her eyes were curious and maybe a little concerned, but she didn’t look scared or disappointed.

“Sorry.” The apology came out automatically, even though she knew she should have held it in.

“You don’t have to apologize,” Nicole countered, quickly and seriously.

“It’s just been a long day.”

“It’s okay. Really. Do you want anything to eat? Drink?”

“Is it too much to hope that you have a bottle of wine somewhere?”

It was apparently _not_ too much to hope. Nicole produced a bottle and a pair of wine glasses and filled them each with a heavy pour while Waverly perched at the kitchen table and watched.

“You know, I guess there sort of _is_ something specific I should tell you,” she said after a minute, as Nicole handed her the glass of wine and decanted a box of crackers into a bowl.

“Yeah?” Nicole sounded curious, and Waverly was torn between wanting to tell her and wanting to keep the news a secret.

“Um… Wynonna knows. I mean, I told her. About you. I mean, about _us_. You know what I mean.” She fiddled with the wine glass, nudging it and letting the liquid inside swirl. “It just kinda… came out.” She paused, then breathed a small laugh. “Ironic choice of words…”

She glanced up to catch Nicole’s reaction, which was— stunned, apparently. And maybe there was just a flicker of delight, in the way her eyes widened and her eyebrows raised, in the way her lips twitched upward unconsciously.

“How did it go?” she asked, keeping her tone neutral, like she was prepared for either outcome. Waverly shook her head, smiling.

“Fine, actually. It doesn’t seem to bother her. I mean, aside from you being a cop.”

“Of course.” Nicole smiled to herself. “And how do you feel?”

Waverly sighed.

“Kinda like a huge weight’s been lifted. I’d really wanted to tell her, but I was so afraid she’d… look at me different, or think about me different. I thought it would change things.”

After all, Wynonna had been gone for so long. Now that she was back, the risk of pushing her away, even the tiniest bit, had been too much to bear. Nicole’s hand found her shoulder, rubbing gently, reassuringly.

“Things change every day. But sometimes it’s for the better.”

“Yeah, I’m starting to see that.” After all, Nicole herself was one hell of a change from Champ Hardy, and wasn’t _that_ one hell of a change for the better? “But don’t worry, I didn’t say anything in front of Dolls.”

Nicole chuckled a little.

“Oh, Dolls _definitely_ knows,” she said wryly. Waverly felt her eyebrows shoot up.

“He does?!”

Nicole nodded.

“I didn’t tell him or anything, but he’s known from the start that I was interested in you. I, uh… wasn’t always the most subtle person in the world, and not everyone is as oblivious as your sister.” Her face turned the slightest bit pink at that admission.

This was news to Waverly. Nicole always seemed so… _brazen_. So cool and confident. It was odd to think of Dolls catching her pining from afar.

“Oh. He’s never said anything to me about it.”

Nicole gave a small laugh.

“I’m pretty sure he thought it was one-sided. But I doubt he’s missed how we’ve been acting lately.”

“Huh…” She wondered if he would mention it to her, or if he would wait for her to say something.

“I wouldn’t worry, though. It doesn’t seem to bother him, and he’s not exactly the type to run around spreading gossip. I mean, if you still aren’t ready for everyone in town to know.”

That caught Waverly slightly off-guard. She had been worried about Wynonna finding out, but she still wasn’t sure about setting the news loose on all of Purgatory— including the likes of Champ, or Tucker Gardner, or (god forbid) Bunny Loblaw.

On the other hand, they couldn’t hide it forever. No matter how willing as Nicole was to go at Waverly’s pace, ‘forever’ was a long time to keep a secret. Especially since they weren’t doing anything _wrong_. There was no reason why anyone _should_ care. It was just… different. And it was actually kind of nice to think of sharing the news with Gus, or even someone like Chrissy.

“I… I don’t know yet,” she said finally. She would need time, to think about who to tell, and when, and how much. After all, she hadn’t been _completely_ lying when she’d told Nicole she was a planner.

“That’s fine. You don’t have to know right away,” Nicole said, her voice still steady and reassuring. “But just let me know when you think you’re ready, or if you want to talk about it.”

“I will.” She took a sip from the wine glass. They _would_ have to talk about it eventually, but maybe not tonight. Her head was already so full. It had been such a long day. “What would you be doing tonight if I hadn’t come over?”

“I don’t know. Probably watching TV, seeing if there was a game tonight I wanted to watch.”

“A game? Like sports? You’re into sports? Why doesn’t that surprise me.” Nicole’s build smacked of athleticism. She wondered if she had ever played any, and added it to a list of future questions.

“Not _obsessively_ or anything, and not _all_ sports. Just some of them. Basketball. Hockey. Women’s soccer. Baseball, but only if the Blue Jays are playing.”

“That’s a lot of sports,” Waverly said, stifling a smile.

“It’s not _that_ many. I mean, I don’t care about golf at all. Or football.” Nicole said it as though it were a winning argument, and Waverly couldn’t hold back a giggle.

“Of course, how silly of me. You hardly watch any sports at all, compared to _all the sports in the world_.”

Nicole rolled her eyes, albeit affectionately.

“Well, if you just want to hang out and watch TV, I’m sure we’ll be able to find _something_ we can both watch.”

Nicole nodded her towards the couch, already gathering up the wine bottle and bowl of crackers, and Waverly followed her into the front room.

“Feel free to use the blankets if you want,” Nicole said, tapping the throw blankets draped over the back of the couch. “Until the heater kicks on.”

Waverly took a seat, and after a short internal debate, did tug one of the blankets down and drape it over her legs, both for warmth and because it made her feel the tiniest bit less vulnerable.

Nicole joined her, managing to set everything down on the coffee table. She settled next to her on the couch, turned slightly so that they were facing each other.

Again, just sitting on Nicole’s couch together— so simple, but so different from stolen kisses in Nedley’s office.

“So what do you want to watch?” Waverly asked. “You said… sports?”

Nicole stifled a laugh, but her look was still pure affection.

“No, see, just the way you said that? I can tell means you would hate it.”

“I wouldn’t _hate_ —”

“No, come on, you were the one with the bad day. You pick something,” Nicole urged. “Really, I don’t care what we watch. Next time I have a bad day, I’ll pick.”

“It wasn’t totally _bad_ , just… weird.”

“Next time I have a _weird_ day then. So… tomorrow, probably,” Nicole said with a small chuckle.

Waverly acquiesced to Nicole’s dogged insistence and accepted control of the TV. She clicked through channels more or less at random, but made sure to steal sideways glances at Nicole as she went, which was how she caught the slight head-raise of attention that occurred as she paused briefly on a dog show.

“How about this?” Waverly asked with expertly feigned nonchalance.

“Sure, if you want,” Nicole said, a little too quickly. Waverly bit back a laugh and settled back, startling as she encountered Nicole’s arm sneakily draped along the couch behind her. Nicole saw the jump and began to pull her arm back, slowly enough to be stopped. “Sorry, do you want me to—”

“No, leave it.” In a bold move, Waverly reached back for her retreating hand and pulled it more snugly around her shoulders. Nicole shifted closer to compensate, making everything smell like vanilla, and all was well with the world.

The dog show itself was boring— possibly as boring as sports, although at least some of the dogs were cute— but it was more fun anyway to watch Nicole’s face as _she_ watched it.

“So you like dogs?” Waverly guessed, watching her beam as a German Shepard loped across the screen.

“Yeah.”

“But you have a cat,” she said, half in accusation. “Not a dog.”

“Well, my hours can be pretty crazy, and I can get called in for extra shifts and stuff. Not the best situation for a dog.” She tilted her head back and forth slightly, as though weighing whether or not to add something else. “Plus, I see how many missing animal reports come through the station. I get the feeling Purgatory isn’t a great place for outdoor pets.”

“You may have a point,” Waverly admitted.

In another world, one where she could tell Nicole all about Wyatt Earp and his Revenants and everything, maybe she could add something there, like _maybe when Wynonna and I break the curse, you can get a dog_. But that wasn’t the world they lived in.

So instead she just shifted closer, fitting herself into Nicole’s side.

“Warm enough?” Nicole asked, her fingers absentmindedly stroking Waverly’s arm.

“Getting there.”

* * *

The wine and Nicole’s warmth and her gentle hands and her sweet scent all worked their dark magic on her, and Waverly felt the stress of the day begin to unwind. She slumped further and further into Nicole’s side, snuggling a little into her sweater and basking in the warmth of her body.

“Tired?” Nicole asked, her voice low. Her fingers traced slow paths up and down Waverly’s body— from shoulder to wrist and back, then from shoulder to waist— and it was the best remedy for the day Waverly could imagine.

“No,” Waverly said, and it was mostly true. She had arrived at Nicole’s house still keyed-up from the day, but now that the tension was draining away, instead of feeling _tired_ , she just felt relaxed. She didn’t want to sleep; she just wanted to stay curled against her, awake and appreciative.

Even if she _was_ tilting more and more horizontal by the moment.

Nicole gave a small laugh after a minute and began angling sideways to accommodate her.

“Hang on, let me just…”

Nicole turned her body sideways and shifted back, smoothly maneuvering them both so that she was lying back against the armrest and Waverly was half on top of her. Waverly followed her lead and found herself with her head pillowed on Nicole’s stomach, the blanket spread over them both. It was _magnificently_ warm and comfortable.

“Better?” Nicole asked.

“Perfect.”

She began half-watching the dog show and half just enjoying the feeling of Nicole’s body under hers. It was warm, and solid but soft, and it rose and fell slightly with each of her breaths. The feeling reminded her of being rocked, or like how she imagined being on a ship in the water would feel. Her meditative state was rudely interrupted by a musical chirp and a vibration in her pocket, and she fished her phone out with an annoyed frown. Wynonna had texted her.

_—Well???_

Waverly rolled her eyes. She loved her sister, but right now she was the last thing on her mind. Barring any new disasters, she _really_ didn't care to be interrupted.

— _I’m BUSY. Text me again, and I burn your favorite jacket._

Wynonna’s answer came almost immediately.

— _Understood_

Satisfied, Waverly tried to slip the phone back into her pocket. But it buzzed again.

— _Wait, that didn’t count, right?_

And again.

— _RIGHT???_

Waverly rolled her eyes, suppressing a groan.

_—WYNONNA_

She hoped her sister could read her frustration in the all-caps. The response came quick again.

_—Sry_

Waverly glared down at her phone for several more seconds, but it seemed like this time Wynonna had gotten the point.

“Is something wrong?” Nicole asked. Waverly slipped her phone back under the blanket, out of sight and out of mind.

“Nope, absolutely nothing.”

* * *

Wynonna had done a very lackluster job of brushing her hair this morning, a fact which had annoyed Waverly once they were back in their own bodies. But now she was mentally crafting a sincere thank-you note to her sister, because Nicole had begun running her fingers through her hair, and Wynonna’s haphazard job made it a much more involved process than it might have been otherwise.

Nicole’s fingers combed through the long strands over and over, gently picking apart snarls and tangles and smoothing them out again in slow, gentle motions. Maybe it was the wine, or maybe it was her insane day, or maybe it was the warmth of Nicole’s body and the obvious care she took with each touch, but Waverly couldn’t remember ever being quite so relaxed, possibly in her entire life.

There was something about Nicole that let her drop her guard, in a way that hadn’t happened in previous relationships. Or friendships. Or even possibly with her family. It was hard to nail down.

Maybe it was just how _focused_ Nicole was on her. How Nicole seemed to care how she felt about things. Like she’d told Wynonna, Nicole cared _out loud_. Like Waverly was her first priority.

Or maybe it was how Waverly knew that at any moment, if she just said ‘stop’ or ‘wait,’ Nicole would instantly obey. Or if she leaned up and kissed her, Nicole would follow her lead. For one of the precious few times in her life, she actually felt _seen_ and _heard_ and _listened to_.

It was like she had a say in the relationship. It was like she had control.

And wasn’t _that_ a novelty in her life.

“Uh oh, don’t look now, but someone’s jealous.” Nicole’s voice was low, like she wasn’t sure if she was sleeping or not and didn’t want to wake her. Waverly peeked her eyes open, but the TV was playing a commercial for breakfast cereal, which didn’t really seem relevant to anything. She gave a soft, questioning hum, and Nicole pointed across the room, where a huge, fluffy orange cat was staring right at her, tail swishing.

“So you _do_ have a cat,” Waverly said, her voice a sedate murmur.

“Yeah, and you’re in her spot.”

“Is she gonna kick me out?”

“I don’t know. My guess is that she’ll either sit right there and glare at you all night, or she’ll climb up and try to join us.” Nicole finished untangling a particularly stubborn knot and ran her fingers through her hair again, and Waverly closed her eyes. “If she tries to jump up, do you want me to stop her?”

“No, she’s fine.” Especially since ‘stopping her’ sounded like it could include Nicole standing up to relocate the cat to another room, or at the very least a brief pause in the hair-stroking to shoo her away, and neither of those were acceptable.

It was several minutes later when Nicole murmured, “Here she comes,” quickly followed by the sensation of paws touching her leg. Waverly looked down towards her feet, where Calamity Jane had put her front paws up experimentally and was now sniffing near the cuffs of her jeans. This was a lengthy procedure, but apparently she smelled harmless, because after a minute, the cat bunched itself up and launched expertly into her lap.

Calamity Jane was heavier than she had expected, and Waverly winced as she circled experimentally before curling into a big, purring lump across her legs. She felt Nicole’s chuckle from where it originated, deep in her chest.

“She must have decided to like you,” Nicole said, as Waverly absently petted the cat’s head a few times. “I guess I always knew she had good taste.”

Calamity Jane twitched her ears and leaned into the touch, pushing her head into her hand for more attention.

Waverly could relate.

“She’s cute,” Waverly murmured.

She wondered if this was the kind of evening she could come to expect now that she was dating Nicole. Cuddles on the couch with wine and a cat and questionable television choices. Because if so, then she was more than ready to sign on for the long haul.

“Can I ask you something? About this morning?” Nicole asked after a minute. Waverly’s heavy lassitude lifted briefly, a spark of worry reappearing where everything had just been warm and fuzzy.

“Uh… Sure, I guess.” She just hoped that the answer wasn’t going to require her to lie or dance around the truth.

“This might sound weird, but… was it just that you were sick, or was something else going on? Because you seemed really… I don’t know… not yourself.”

Waverly didn’t mean to laugh, really she didn’t, but _for god’s sake Nicole_. Talk about hitting the nail on the head. She snorted at the unintended joke, leaving Nicole clearly bemused and unsure of whether to be offended.

“Sorry. Sorry,” Waverly said quickly, trying to control her giggling. “It’s not a weird question, I promise, it’s just… you’re right. Some of the Black Badge stuff had already started that morning, before I came in.”

“Oh, okay… So that’s why you asked for Dolls when you first walked in. I’d been wondering about that.”

Waverly assumed that Wynonna had gone to the cop shop looking for Dolls, before Nicole had unwittingly pulled her away for some alone time.

“Yeah. Sorry if I was acting weird. I was… _super_ distracted.”

“And not feeling well,” Nicole added, and Waverly nodded, feeling a little guilty.

“Yeah, and not feeling well.”

“Okay… So… I didn’t cross any lines? You just… I don’t know, when you pulled away, you looked…” She trailed off, frowning, like she couldn’t— or didn’t want to— say what she was really thinking. Waverly reached up and brushed her fingers against Nicole’s cheek.

“Oh… Nicole, no. You didn’t do anything wrong. My head was just… somewhere else. You were fine, I promise. It was just me.”

“Okay…” Nicole shook her head a little, as though dispelling a thought from her mind. “Sorry I asked. It just seemed like more… But you seem okay now.”

Waverly tilted her head back to gaze at her upside-down.

“Very, _very_ okay,” she mimicked Nicole from earlier, and Nicole smirked at her, then leaned down to press a kiss to the crown of her head.

“Well, I’m glad you’re feeling better.”

Nicole didn’t ask any follow-up questions, which was a relief, because it meant that Waverly didn’t have to twist the truth anymore.

As they both settled again, Nicole still idly stroking her hair, she wondered what would happen if she just told Nicole about everything. The curse, and the Heir, and the Revenants. Everything. Nicole had already seen so much. Heck, she had already almost been _killed_ by one of them— a thought that made Waverly want to shiver now, just at the _idea_ of it.

Maybe Nicole would understand. Maybe she would be able to accept it. Maybe she wouldn’t turn and start running.

But on the other hand… Waverly remembered her childhood, and her teen years. She remembered how Wynonna’s determination to make everyone believe her just made them all turn against her. Even after all the weirdness all the townsfolk had witnessed over the years, it hadn’t made them any more willing to listen.

She had only been in Wynonna’s body for a day, but even just a few minutes walking down to the police station had garnered her suspicious and disapproving looks from passersby where she was used to friendly smiles and waves. It tore at her heart to think of Wynonna getting those looks every single day.

And the thought of Nicole looking at her like that… She just couldn’t risk it. Not yet.

But she liked to imagine it working out. If Nicole knew about the curse, then she could talk to her about it. They could laugh about how weird it was for Waverly and Wynonna to be in each others’ bodies, and they could share their comical disgust at the thought of Nicole kissing _Wynonna_ that morning. Nicole could be properly reassured that she hadn’t done anything wrong.

And Waverly could tell her how much she had wanted to use Peacemaker, to know what it felt like to be the Heir. She could tell her how surreal it was to see her own body shoot the glowing weapon, like something out of a dream.

It wasn’t something she could talk to Wynonna about. Wynonna’s sense of guilt afterwards had radiated out like a visible aura, and Waverly knew that bringing it up would just lead to a dozen more awkward apologies, and that wasn’t what she needed. She just needed someone to listen and understand, and Nicole seemed like she would be _really_ good at that.

_Well… Maybe someday…_

* * *

Time passed in one long, languid stream, until Waverly’s wandering eyes paused on a clock sitting on a shelf near the TV.

“Oh my God,” she mumbled, partially into Nicole’s sweater.

“What?” Nicole asked, pausing her hand where it had been playing idly with a lock of her hair.

“Is that clock right?” Waverly asked. It was just past midnight.

“As far as I know,” Nicole said.

“Oh balls, I didn’t realize… How freaking long is this dog show?”

Nicole surveyed her with clear amusement.

“After the first one, they started playing reruns from earlier years. This is the third one we’ve watched.”

“It _is_?” Waverly hadn’t even noticed. They all looked the same. “You probably have work in the morning. You should have kicked me out hours ago.” Waverly felt instantly guilty.

“Probably,” Nicole agreed, smiling. “But I was enjoying myself too much.”

Ridiculous. Nicole could be _ridiculous_.

“I’ve just been lying here.”

“Wave, I’ve been trying to get you here for _weeks_. Just having you here, getting to relax with you, that’s been nice.” Nicole’s hand settled on the back of her neck, thumb still stroking absently. “Besides, you seemed like you needed to relax.”

Waverly sighed.

“I _really_ did.”

All the stress and tension of the day was gone. The confusion and panic of waking up in Wynonna’s car, the fear and horror of finding Nicole and Wynonna in Nedley’s office, the discomfort and worry about talking to Wynonna about Nicole, the pain of trying to fire Peacemaker and failing. It all felt distant now, chased away by Nicole’s patient hands.

“Well, I didn’t mean to trap you here. You can leave anytime,” Nicole said. “Or… I mean, it _is_ really late. You’re welcome to stay over if you want, or if you’re too tired to drive.”

Oh, _that_ was tempting. Dangerously tempting. But it _was_ only her first time at Nicole’s house. Plus, god forbid she and Wynonna woke up switched again with Waverly’s body in Nicole’s bed. Talk about the nightmare scenario. For everyone involved.

“No, I think I’m okay.”

She had wondered if Nicole would be disappointed by her turning down the offer, but if she was, she didn’t show it.

“Okay,” she said simply. Like it really _was_ okay either way. Like all that mattered was what Waverly _wanted_ to do.

It was so weird.

It was so nice.

She sat up, and _instantly_ missed the warmth of Nicole’s body against hers, to the point where she nearly laid right back down again. Her moving awoke Calamity, who looked up at her with an accusing _Mmrrr?_

“Sorry,” she told the cat. She offered an apologetic head pat, but Calamity ducked away from her hand and jumped out of her lap, slinking indignantly out of the room. Nicole chuckled.

“Well, that’s cats for you.” She stood and stretched, joints popping after hours of lying in the same position. It gave Waverly another opportunity to just look at her, enjoying the view as her muscles flexed and relaxed again.

Nicole finished gathering the wine glasses and refolding the blanket, while Waverly retrieved her coat. The whole time, a part of her mind kept trying to find some excuse to stay. Maybe if she’d really fallen asleep. Maybe if she’d drunk more of the wine. Maybe if she didn’t feel safe driving in the dark.

Maybe she didn’t really need an excuse. Maybe she could just stay if she wanted to.

But then Nicole was helping her into her coat, and then they were lingering in her doorway, what was meant to be a quick goodbye kiss stretching into something more. Waverly found herself leaning in and pinning Nicole against the wall, her hands gripping the back of her neck, trying to convey some kind of heartfelt gratitude or affection or _something_ _else_ she didn’t quite have the words for yet.

“Whoa…” Nicole breathed as they separated enough to get in a full breath.

“Thanks for tonight,” Waverly said, ending with a final kiss to her cheek. Nicole’s pupils were blown wide with pleasure, making her look a bit wild, and her hands clutched at Waverly’s coat, keeping her close. Waverly almost couldn’t leave. It was too tempting to stay. “Can I come back tomorrow?”

Nicole’s smile stretched into a delighted grin.

“You can come back whenever you want. Anytime.”

“Five in the morning?” Waverly challenged her. She didn’t back down.

“I’ll make you coffee.”

“Six in the evening?”

“We can have dinner.”

“I’ve been thinking about going vegan.”

“That’s fine.”

“Midnight?”

“I’ll probably be asleep, but my phone is always on for emergencies. Call, and I’ll let you in.”

“Anytime?”

“Anytime.”

“Okay. Then it’s a date.”

“Perfect.” Nicole looked at her like she really meant it. Like even on this crazy day in this crazy town, everything really was, just for right now, absolutely perfect.

“I’ll see you soon,” Waverly promised, pressing one more kiss to her soft, warm lips.

Nicole’s smile was the last thing she saw as she slowly, reluctantly backed out the door.

“Never soon enough.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for joining me on this wild ride, everyone! I hope you liked it, and I hope it reminds you of the show's early days, back before we knew everything it would become. Thanks as always for reading, and I'd love to hear what you thought of it. Take care, Earpers.


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